Crimson Web
by Cerulean.Phoenix7
Summary: The images are all there, strung up like her good intentions in this bloody web of deception. *COMPLETE*
1. Puppeteer

Crimson Web

Disclaimer**:** I do not own Fringe, although if there is some alternate version of me in another universe that somehow, by some bizarre series of events owns Fringe... I would be extremely jealous of said person.

A/N**:** This is set immediately following the season 2 finale "Over There." I'm ignoring pretty much everything that happened in season 3 in this story, just because it would muck up my plans somewhat if I didn't :P And when I wrote out the plan for this story, it was just after the season 2 finale. If there happen to be any coincidences between my story and any events of season 3... oh well ;P

Anyways, onwards!

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><p><span>Chapter One: Puppeteer<span>

It was beyond eerie.

The lab was arranged with no particular organization that she could see, beakers jumbled amongst Bunsen burners. Test tubes were lined up alongside a microscope and a pink milkshake sat alone on the counter, condensation beading in liquid diamonds on the container.

Olivia Dunham stood by the worn staircase, hand delicately settled on the cold metal rail, something that should've been so familiar seemed so alien.

Of course, she was from another universe, so how was that to be unexpected?

After the first day she'd classified levels of difference from this universe and her own, the smallest being the face on the twenty dollar bill to the largest ones such as the absence of the Twin Towers in New York.

She'd considered this assignment to be very much one of her own control, pulling the strings in this little ruse.

"Hey Olivia, I'll see you tomorrow," interjected Astrid.

"Yea," she answered, still marvelled at the difference between the two. The contrast was like black and white, completely opposite ends of a gargantuan spectrum.

The door shut behind her and another voice interjected. "Livia?"

_Peter_.

He was one difference that held no category, simply something she had to act with; a prop in her little stage play.

"Hey, uhh, I was just headin' out for the night."

"Alright, I'll see you in the morning then sweetheart," and kissed her briefly.

She'd quickly become accustomed to that, just telling herself for the millionth time that it was the mission.

She picked up her coat and reached for her keys-that Peter held up for her with a comedic jingle. "Might need these."

She chuckled and snatched them from his hand as Walter shuffled out into the lab, pristine white coat draped over his sweater vest and peered into a microscope.

"Goodnight, Walter," Olivia said. The name felt strange and awkward on her tongue, as if she was trying to swallow a piece of fruit that was too big for her mouth.

He looked up swiftly from his work, a brief smile on his face before his beady eyes seemed to darken, tinted with shadow. "Goodnight, Agent Dunham."

With one final smirk to Peter she left. Her shoes clacked against the floor like a hollow metronome as she pondered the notion of this little show she'd orchestrated.

Peter and Astrid were the easy ones - the gullible ones. They were puppets, their strings invisible little lines of deceit attached to a web of deception.

But Walter, he was one who Olivia found difficult to control, a puppet who escaped the constraints of the strings. But surely a few tugs here and a jostle there would do.

After all, she was the puppeteer.

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><p><strong>Please review :D<strong>


	2. Threads

**Chapter Two: Threads**

Darkness.

Eyes closed or open, it was all she saw.

Olivia had been trapped in the unlit cell for uncounted days. Light was only granted to her when the Secretary ripped up the blind and the blinding glare found her eyes, scarring them with little dots of white.

It had been three days since he'd come to check on her, or was it five? The days were starting to slip.

She cried, but who wouldn't?

Sound escaped her; only the occasional shuffle of her own shoes on the floor or the click of her fingernails against the cold bunk was heard.

She screamed, but no one heard.

She wondered what happened to the others, did they make it home? Were they safe? These were questions locked away in a chained box of unknowing, one she had no access to there.

A muffled clunking sound made her open her eyes, like metal gears gnawing into each other while the mechanism worked away.

With a swift movement, the blind opened and illuminated the room. Olivia squinted in the blaring light.

When she could see again, the Secretary stood there, completely stoic. He stood straight, face poised in utter superiority. Something in his eyes seemed almost smug, but the rest was terrifying adversity.

"Please let me go," she whispered.

He made no acknowledgement, just slammed the blind back down.

She closed her eyes again, content with the images she could conjure to cure some of the void, but even they faded eventually.

But after many had faded, she thought of one; an image that she could breathe in the scent of and remember the touch of.

In that consuming miasma of blackness, she thought of Peter.

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><p><strong>Please review :) Chapter three will be up soon.<strong>


	3. Open Inquiry

A/N: I just wanted to thank everyone for all the interest in this story already and the kind reviews that people have left :) It's very encouraging. I'm updating so soon because I most likely will not be able to post any new chapters for at least a week. If I have a chance tomorrow I will post chapter 4 but that will be all for a little while. Rest assured thought that during that time I will be writing. I have the first fifteen chapters of this story written, and will hopefully be able to write a few more in the coming week :)

Also, a HUGE shoutout to my friend ab89us for reading all these chapters and being a constant source of encouragement :D

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><p><span>Chapter Three: Open Inquiry<span>

The weather had absolutely no relation to why beads of sweat formed on Kyle Andrews' forehead that cool morning.

He'd walked out of his apartment at exactly 6:10 am to head to work and only minutes later he felt particularly warm, as if the temperature had jumped a good ten degrees.

_This is ridiculous_, he thought as he punched the small white button at the crosswalk of a bustling intersection.

The lights shifted, and for a brief second he caught a reflection of himself in a stopped car's window. His face resembled a tomato, tinged a frightening shade of red.

His heart sped up.

He stepped onto the pale lines of the crosswalk, and breathing became a much more laboured task with each step. Then he couldn't breathe at all, as if someone had clenched his airway shut and his pleas for air went unanswered. His skin boiled, sweat dripping off in a churning rain.

People gathered around him, asking if he was alright. Why didn't they do something? Kyle tried to scream, but it was like a serpent had coiled around his throat, suffocating words from his lungs.

He felt like there was a sun roiling inside him. Then he saw his hands; they were on fire.

And in that Boston intersection, Kyle Andrews burst into flames.

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><p>Among the ruffles of darkness that filled Olivia Dunham's apartment, a cell phone chimed to life.<p>

Olivia rolled over to the side table and contemplated answering it for a moment, but that was before she saw the caller ID on the neon display.

_Broyles_.

She reached for the phone and wondered for a moment how to answer, this Broyles didn't know her. He knew her as _this_ universe's Olivia Dunham.

The phone chimed again.

Well, she supposed that not answering the phone would certainly _not_ be a brilliant plan in these circumstances.

"Hello?" she said into the phone.

"Dunham, get the Bishops. I've sent you a location, be there in twenty minutes, we have a case." Then silence met her ears.

She lowered the phone slowly, not only did she work with this universe's Walter Bishop, but she ferried them around too? The notion made her stomach wring into some rather intricate knots.

She pressed another button on the phone and found Peter's number, near the top of her speed-dial list. _That's handy_, she thought with the quirk of an eyebrow.

The phone rang once before a voice said "Hello?"

"Hey, it's me," she said.

"'Livia, hey. What's going on?"

"Well Broyles just called and it sounds like we've got a case."

"Terrific," he said sarcastically. "By any chance did he mention where?"

She cycled through the messages and found the one from Broyles. "Yea, I'm sendin' it to you now."

"Alright, I'll see you there."

Perhaps she didn't ferry them around after all.

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><p>The decay of the fragile fabric that bound the two universes together had caused many strange and bizarre things to occur. Olivia had been witness to many such things; but this made several memories rouse from their deep slumber and peer out from the caves that they'd been nestled in in her mind.<p>

The intersection was quartered off, yellow police tape strung in a cautionary web around the scene. In the middle lay a body, charred like an old fire log with the embers extinguished and the ash hardened. Charcoal marks sprayed out from the corpse, like an explosion of black ink.

Broyles approached them from a congregation of officers; his face a stoic pane of opaque glass, impossible to see through.

"What've we got?" Olivia asked.

Broyles moved aside so they could see the victim as crime scene photographers snapped images from multiple angles, the brief flashes illuminating the haunting angles of the victim's face.

"No name yet, but according to witnesses he went to cross this intersection and had difficulty breathing, then burst into flames."

"Remind you of anything?" Peter asked.

"Roast chicken," Walter interjected.

They all turned, Peter's expression was the most flabbergasted. "What?"

"Oh don't you remember Peter? When you were ten you tried to help me cook a roast chicken and we forgot about it and when we finally took it out of the oven it was burnt to a dark, black crisp," he chuckled. "We tried to cut it open and ended breaking three knives before I finally got out my chainsaw..."

"Lovely memories Walter," Peter said.

"This incident seems remarkably similar to the Susan Pratt case," Broyles said.

Olivia remembered the case, but hadn't that involved Pratt's twin as well?

"Pyrokinesis?" Peter asked.

"We don't know yet."

Walter pushed past them then and looked over the body.

"What do you make of this Doctor Bishop?"

Walter inspected the body some more, his shoulders shifting about suspiciously before he answered. "I suspect that it could be either pyrokinesis... or spontaneous human combustion."

"But last time you said that you were wrong," Peter answered.

Walter turned. "Yes, but if we assume that it's pyrokinesis we could be equally wrong." He turned back to the body and said with a disgruntled huff. "One must consider all the possibilities."

Broyles held up an evidence bag and handed it to Olivia. "This was found next to the victim, the letters appeared to be burned into the paper. With what and how, we're still not sure."

Olivia looked at the paper through the wrinkled plastic. Two words were scorched into the brown paper: TO ERR.

She felt hot breath cascade against her neck; Peter was looking over her shoulder. Another thing that she wasn't used to; Frank's breath never made the hairs on her neck stand on end.

"To Err," Peter recited. "As in to 'to err is human'?"

Olivia shook her head. "I dunno, what does Walter think?"

"Eh, Walter," Peter called and the old man hurried over. "What do you make of this?" and handed him the evidence.

He looked at it for a moment. "I have no idea, however I would very much like to stop at that lovely milkshake place on the way back to the lab. Do tell Agent Broyles that I'll need that body transported to my lab." And he hurried away, the prospect of a new body clearly exciting him beyond anyone else's understanding.

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><p><strong>Please review :D<strong>


	4. War Games

A/N: Alrighty, here is chapter four. This will be the last update for about a week, BUT this is a longer chapter and I will be writing in the week I'm not posting so fear not ;P

Also, virtual cookies to whoever guesses what novel reference I placed in this chapter (hint: it's a name ;)).

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><p><span>Chapter Four: War Games<span>

The old car stuttered as Peter pulled up to the beaten curb outside Olivia's apartment; her SUV had strangely stalled when she had gone to leave the scene, and Peter, suddenly finding a hidden stash of chivalry, offered to drive her home.

The drive over had been a mixed bag of thick, uneasy silence to gentle, flowing conversation. Normally there would be more if Walter was there, but Astrid had been willing enough to drive Walter to the lab. That woman deserved a pay raise.

"Thanks, Peter." She said as she opened the car door, then hesitated and slipped back in, pressing her lips against his.

When she moved away, and Peter took in a breath she whispered "Almost forgot that" and got out of the car.

He watched her walk up to her apartment and the way the wind tickled her blonde hair; he definitely liked the blonde better.

When Peter arrived home, the night had painted its dark mural with obsidian splotches blurring out the stars. Shadows hid at every corner, and the streetlight above the spot where Peter parked was out. _Now that's not creepy at all_, he mused.

He strolled in the front door, immediately bombarded with a peculiar and poignant aroma that saturated the air. "Walter," he called suspiciously. He really didn't want to have to break out that baseball bat of his if it wasn't needed.

He heard his father's voice chirping about in a melodic tone in the kitchen, and his shoulders relaxed. He severely hoped that his father had not made another attempt at chocolate pudding.

Suddenly, the man poked his head out from the confines of the kitchen, a Cheshire cat grin splattered on his face. The smile fell away when Walter saw him. "Peter," he said.

Pete nodded. "Hey Walter," he said and peeked into the kitchen, noticing the various pots that boiled with massive plumes of steam. "What are you doing?" He asked with slight alarm.

"Oh I was just making some custard; this batch seems to be coming along well."

Peter did a double-take. "Wait, Walter, _this_ batch? How many batches have you tried to make?"

The man didn't reply, he just shifted about the kitchen, clearly searching for something. He went into a cloud of steam, which Peter noticed now billowed into a good portion of the room.

"Ah! Here we are," Walter said through the cloud. "I want you to try some of this for me Peter."

Walter offering him some of this strange concoction when Peter didn't even know if he had tried some himself, that didn't sound good.

"Walter, I'm not trying any of..." His sentence was quickly cut short by a spoon brimming with a gooey, sticky substance being shoved into his mouth.

At first it was sweet, and Peter was going to say it wasn't half bad. _First compliment he's probably gotten in a while..._Then a boot of sharp bitterness rammed into his mouth and Peter tried not to gag as his eyes watered.

Walter frowned. "Mm...That bad?"

Peter nodded through a harsh fit of coughing. "Yes... Walter... what did you put in that?"

"Well milk, sugar, eggs and a few things of my own creation."

_Great_, thought Peter.

Before Peter could add his own thoughts Walter continued. "Well, perhaps some Brown Betty would..."

"Some what?" Peter asked.

"Brown Betty, it's quite wonderful I must say," he said with great enthusiasm.

"_Walter_," Peter warned. "You are _not_ putting hallucinogens in _custard!_"

"Well why not son? Do I not have the right of my own choices?"

Peter paused for a moment and wondered whether or not Walter's words were applied to events that had left footprints outside the thin walls of their house. He had always known there were ethical boundaries, some which he chose to ignore. But there were some, such as putting _drugs_ in a dessert that he knew crossed that thick line that was stained in a deadly red.

"Because Walter, there are some things you just _don't _do," he said and the moment he clipped his sentence he saw Walter's eyes droop like a withered eagle under a storm cloud and knew that his careless arrow had hit a much more sensitive spot than he intended.

Walter's lips moved but there were no words; at least none he could find. "Peter," he said, "I have done things that I know most people would look down upon, even I do." He paused for a moment, his fingers fiddling in a beige cat's cradle before he continued. "There are things that we simply cannot change, and what I did... it is one of them." His fingers trembled for a moment. "But despite that Peter, I love you son."

Peter stood there, perplexed in an ice block of mixed emotions, and any inkling of response failed him. "Walter," he said, taking a minute to compose something lucid. "You took me from my home. You crossed a line that no one was ever meant to cross," he said and he left without another word.

As he left the kitchen, which still brimmed with its various pops and whistles, Peter distinctly heard Walter say "Goodnight son."

He retreated to the bedroom where he allowed sleep to claim him after settling beneath the cool sheets. He found the darkness to be most relieving, no possible ports for distraction, only peace.

But in this darkness, figures began to take shape, wiry dancers that reached their limbs out to the ethereal orb that was suspended in the sky.

_Trees_, he thought.

The scene grew in detail as patterns of recognition sprouted before him. He was in a field, long grass reaching up to his knees. A pale moon gleamed onto the scene, casting shadows into darker places.

A few trees in the distance yielded something else; a ewe that sauntered lightly towards him. The sheep looked at him curiously, like one would at a stranger. He gingerly reached his hand out to the creature, who allowed him to pat her head.

He moved his hand back and was about to speak to the creature when its face seemed to droop, an invisible force dragging down any extra folds of skin it could find. Then the facade rippled and fell back, unzipped from the phenomena of lies. And when the costume lay discarded on the ground, a wolf stood before him, snarling with its teeth barred and crimson eyes narrowed.

Peter staggered back quickly before trying to make a slow retreat. The animal snapped at him as a hostile growl gurgled from its throat. It leaned back on its haunches, coiling a spring to set it forward.

_Ah shit_, Peter thought and ran.

Rabid, angry barks pursued him through the dark emerald tresses that rustled with wind. He ran for the trees, but where they had once been, a great black well sprawled out before him. And he tumbled into it like a lost traveller, the wolf's howls fading into a dim echo.

He awoke with the sheets crumpled between his clenched fists, a sheen of sweat condensing on his brow. He cursed silently, that was the last time he would eat any of _Walter's _custard.

He rose from the bed, the crimson numbers of the alarm clock bled 2:33 AM onto the bedside table; rain pitter-pattered against the window nearby.

Peter walked to the window and looked out, streetlights and homes contorted and bent into twisted images by the drops of rain that curled and wobbled along the outside of the window.

But the reflection of his face on the window was pristine as glass.

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><p>Olivia looked like hell.<p>

At least, from what she could see of herself in the reflection of the interrogation room glass told her as much. Eyes, sunken with drooped crescents of stress darkened beneath them. Her hair was still that damn ginger red, tangled and frizzed beyond any point of distaste.

She looked like _her_.

She wanted to smash that glass.

She looked at her arms, blotted with bruises in a rainbow of colours. She was starved, fed enough to live, but not enough to keep almost her entire skeleton from showing through her skin.

A door opened, and she snapped her head up. A man entered, thin with small eyes and brown hair; he was thin, but not to the point of poor health.

She was sure that if she tried, he'd snap in half like a toothpick.

He sat at the opposite end of the small, gray table and looked at her.

"Miss Dunham, I'm going to ask you some questions."

He reached for one of the sheets he'd brought in with him and held it up; it was a picture of Peter.

"Do you know where this man is?"

Her throat thickened and she tried not grimace. She shook her head. "No."

He placed the photo back on the table and then drummed his fingers three times on the table.

"I'm going to be quite frank with you Miss Dunham, because knowing this now might save us all some undue trouble."

She made no move to respond.

"Though you might resist, you might not tell them anything, they won't let you go."

She looked at him, fear began to cloud her again.

"Who are you?" She hissed.

The man leaned back in his chair, completely nonchalant about the whole matter.

"My name is James Beatty."

She'd never heard the name before.

The man returned back to his original position and folded his hands before him. He leaned forward, his brown eyes growing like spiders before her.

"They won't let you go Miss Dunham because you are their bartering chip, you are their incentive."

Now she was finding her voice, they planned to use her to lure Peter back here to use that machine. But if her alternate indeed went back with Peter and Walter, they would find out. An IQ of one hundred and ninety would surely illuminate her doppelganger's mistakes to Peter.

"They'll find out it's not me," she snapped.

"Who?" He asked, angling his face so that the light of the room cast half in light, the other in shadow.

He had no idea. He probably thought she was crazy.

He stood. "I think that's enough for today Miss Dunham," he said and made for the exit.

The shutting door made her feel like she was trapped in a vacuum, only there was air. But every sound seemed intensified, reverberating in a repeating circle.

The door opened again.

This time when she looked, she saw Walternate and two guards.

He said nothing, just nodded at the two guards to grab her.

She didn't resist, she'd learned not to after the first day, that first needle.

She got back to the cell, and before the door closed, she heard the Secretary speak:

"You will crack eventually Olivia..."

Then the door clamped shut and the obsidian phoenix surrounded her again, its black wings swooping over her eyes.

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><p><strong>Please review :D reviews = :D<strong>


	5. Human

A/N: I'm BAAACCCKK! :D Hello again, here is the next chapter of this tale. Enjoy :)

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><p><span>Chapter Five: Human<span>

Walter was leaning over the charred corpse, completely engrossed in his work when Olivia walked in.

"'Livia, hey. What's going on?" Peter asked, turning from the autopsy.

"There's been another victim. New York."

Walter looked up. "They're expanding their field."

Astrid looked up from the computer screen. "Well whoever they are, they certainly don't stay local."

Olivia tossed a clear plastic bag onto the lab bench. It wasn't empty, however; a small piece of beige paper laid inside it, and through the warped cover of the bag the words AT THEE I LEAVE could be seen.

Walter walked over and gingerly picked up the evidence, the skin around his eyes crinkled as he squinted at the evidence.

"It's been burned into the paper," he said.

"What?" Olivia asked.

"The words," Walter replied. "I suspect with some kind of oil."

"Wait," Peter said. "Walter, you're saying that someone deliberately wrote some random words on pieces of paper in oil, burned the words and placed them at the crime scenes."

The man shrugged. "Essentially, yes."

Peter held up a hand in confusion. "Why?"

"I have no idea," Walter said and bit into another piece of red liquorice.

"Alright, next question," Peter said. "Then why New York?"

"Maybe there's some connection between the locations," Astrid suggested. "Where was this one?"

"On Washington Street," Olivia said.

"Wasn't that where the Brayson Place Hotel used to be? The one that disappeared?" Peter inquired.

Olivia was silent for a moment, and then nodded with a smile "Yeah."

A mechanical bird sounded into the conversation as Olivia retrieved her beeping cell phone from her pocket. She retrieved the chirping contraption from her pocket and glimpsed at the caller I.D.

_Rachel._

Olivia hadn't talked to her double's sister since the first day she was over here, and then it had been a brief call muddled with relief and promises of more conversations to pass at a later date.

She answered as calmly as she could, taking a step out of the lab so that they wouldn't overhear.

"Hey Rach, how's it goin'?"

Her sister gave a brief chuckle and answered "Great, Ella just got one of her math tests back and she got an A+ on it."

"Did she really? Tell her that's great," Olivia said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible. Although she found it difficult to be enthusiastic in the company of ghosts who'd taken on the colours of the living.

"So Ella and I are going to be in your area in the next couple days, I've got a conference and Ella's visiting one of her friends, would it be alright if we dropped in?"

Refusal was not an option.

"Yea, sure."

Her sister answered in a pleasant tone "Great, we'll probably see you Sunday then. Bye Liv."

"Bye," she said softly and hung up the receiver.

A torrent of wind rushed out of her lungs as she slumped against the wall and irregular boulders of invisible weight tumbled off her shoulders, only to be replaced byt heavier ones.

How was she supposed to speak to someone who she knew as dead?

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><p>It wasn't the knock at the door two days later that startled her, but it the knowledge of <em>who<em> rapped their knuckles against the door that made her shoulders hitch briefly before she went to answer the door.

When she opened it, a flying blur launched her into a hug. "Aunt Liv!" She tried to reciprocate the hug as best she could as the neurons in her brain scrambled for the name of Olivia's niece.

_Elizabeth? Ellie? El... Ell... Ella! That's it, Ella!_

"Hey Ella, how are you doin'?"

"I got an A+ on my math test," she said excitedly.

"I heard, aren't you smart," Olivia answered.

Ella took a step back from her and looked at Olivia strangely. "Aunt Liv, what happened to your hair?"

"Oh it's just a dye sweetie; it'll wash out in a week or two." And she stood to lead them into the kitchen, her sister following at her side.

"So what prompted the change 'Liv?" Her sister asked as they sat down.

Olivia shrugged. "Just a change of heart I suppose," she turned to Ella. "Ella do you want a drink?"

The child smiled a full grin. "Yes please."

It wasn't until she got to the fridge that Olivia realised that she had no idea what Ella liked, and asking would only rouse suspicions. Then she saw a jug of milk sitting on the top shelf and grabbed it, kids liked milk didn't they? She poured some into a glass, a clear one with no ornate detailing or rich tints of colour. This side's Olivia was like a slab of untouched alabaster, completely devoid of any embellishments.

She set the glass in front of Ella, and the child looked at the glass and then at Olivia, her eyebrows almost stitching together in confusion. But she said nothing and picked up and the glass and took a gentle sip.

Rachel went into a story about her work and the conference she was attending, but Olivia paid little attention to the words of her double's sister and instead focused on the sheer weight that their presence had on her. Rachel died years ago, and the mental image she had of her sister was blurred and smudged with age, but this meeting made a fresh palette of colours wash over the page. The image was fresh like a bouquet of daisies, close to the point of tangibility.

If she wasn't from another universe she would've rejoiced in the event of seeing her sister again, but these were not the terms that she would have agreed to. Her sister was like a mirror, but warped and cracked beyond the memory she had. And Ella was a misty fo,; a dream taken from their fingertips and faded into frayed threads of life.

If she were home now, those chairs would be empty and she wondered if her doppelganger ever saw it, what she would make of it.

She reckoned that she'd see some empty chairs that her sister and niece would usually sit in. The emotions from when her sister passed poured into her in a torrential rain and concern accompanied it with fine accents of stone and lightning.

Her own concern was surely something that mirrored that of her double at the time, but how could one tell when universes separated them?

If their places were switched, she knew she would be concerned.

She remembered a case that she'd heard of before the Fringe incidents; one about a con artist who would forge portraits and try to pass them off as originals.

She felt like a copy, appearing perfect, but a careful inspection revealed slight differences; a stray line here, a patch of uneven shading there. And she was sure she had more than a few of them.

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><p><strong>Please leave a review, I love to hear from my readers :D<strong>


	6. Beacon

So I thought I'd give you guys the next chapter :) I'd like to give a HUGE shoutout to Clmbls for reviewing each chapter thus far :D.

Since I'm still writing this piece, I'm not going to post chapter seven until I finish writing chapter sixteen (which is already started :D). I will do my best to finish that chapter within the next week as chapter seven is where the proverbial slinky starts to speed up on its descent.

Enjoy this chapter my friends.

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><p><span>Chapter Six: Beacon<span>

The darkness had become a constant for Olivia Dunham, one thing that she could always have concrete knowledge of.

When she awoke that morning (or night perhaps, she wasn't sure) she thought for an instant that she had been standing while she slept, as if the wall had become a floor. For all she knew, she could've been on the ceiling at that moment.

She'd tried counting the hours, the seconds ticking through her head like the flick of a pencil against paper, the page soon marked with hundreds of slate slashes. Still the hours had slipped from her hands like melted ice, there for a few moments and then slowly disappearing until she had no notion of them at all.

If she had been able to have anything, she would have asked for a skylight, just to be able to see those few bands of light tumble into her cell and watch them coil back up at sunset.

She let memories be her refuge; a plush, comfy shelter where security and joy were her only companions. But the faces were blurry, like paint mixed with too much water. She saw a young woman and a little girl. Her sister? Cousin? And the little girl, what was her name? Emily, Ella, Emma? Something told her that she was her niece, but Olivia couldn't be sure.

She remembered some cases, with frozen people on a bus and bald men with fedoras, but she was sure that they must be dreams.

Then there was Peter, his image clear like polished silver in her mind. The last memory of him was still strong, a steady pulse in her mind that she clung to. She thought back to that memory, to that kiss. It had been the one that finally melted the barrier between her and Peter. She could still remember the gentle pressure of his lips against hers and how the scent of his aftershave tickled her face. The soft touch of his hand against the small of her back still seemed fresh, like a new born crocus in early spring.

What she recalled most about the moment was the passion that ignited between them like a phoenix reborn from ashes, fuelling them with an elixir of promise. And Olivia had eagerly sipped at the passion that poured from Peter's lips, a fountain of hope's liquor. But in the cell, passion had been robbed and hope tangled in thick chains.

The absence of them made Olivia feel hollow. She'd lived a perfect moment where the future had shone before her as they had come together in the most beautifully flawed thing she knew of.

The future had seemed so bright then, it had shone like a diamond and been as tangible as a fresh, crunchy apple. And now it was gone, turned to charred rock and stale, crumbly bread. And at that moment, her eyes brimmed with emotion and then overflowed. She cried for those lost moments, the shattered diamonds and rotten apples.

In that moment, she cried for Peter, and she hoped that when her tears splashed against the cold, dark floor that they would glimmer.

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><p><strong>Thank you to those that have read this story thus far, including this chapter. Feel free to leave a review on your way out, I always find words of encouragement make me write a little faster ;).<strong>


	7. Expansion

A/N: Hello again :) Here is the next chapter, and from here on out things are going to pick up the pace. The proverbial slinky is starting to move even faster now, so be ready. Also a huge thanks to Clmbls for reviewing and to HeartandImagination for leaving me some awesome reviews :D

Read on my friends.

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><p><span>Chapter Seven: Expansion<span>

It was exactly 2:33 AM when Olivia received the call that another body had been found. Once again in New York, and Broyles told her to rouse the Bishops.

Peter sounded highly unimpressed when he answered the phone a few moments later.

"It had better not be what time I think it is," he said flatly.

"Then think it's whatever time you want it to be and we'll both be happy," she quipped. "They've found another body, in Brooklyn, New York at an opera house."

"Opera house? You mean the one where we crossed over?"

"Yeah," she answered quickly, at least that was something she remembered. Most of the other answers she'd been giving were plucked out the air like a drifting feather, misplaced and unfamiliar.

"I'll get Walter," he said with a sigh. "I'll see you there then 'Livia," he added and then hung up.

* * *

><p>The scene resembled a black lily, something that Olivia had only seen once in her life. On the other side back home, there had been black lilies at her sister's funeral and she'd never forgotten the image of them; they were tattooed to her retinas like a burn. When she saw this, she didn't see the black charcoal stains on the retired stage; she saw long black petals reaching out from an obsidian epicentre. And the way the boards of the stage angled against the mark gave the impression of a petrified stem joining to the bloom. In the centre was a frozen body, as if the lily had suddenly taken on the traits of a Venus Fly Trap.<p>

Olivia remained back for an instant so that she could safely breathe without the risk of choking; _she_ wouldn't choke.

She watched as Peter approached the scene, his eyes scanning over the body like a floodlight. He stopped for a moment and she saw what he was surely looking at, a crumpled piece of paper on the ground. He reached for it, catching it between two fingers and opened it.

Out of curiosity she approached and peeked at the paper over his shoulder. He noticed and with a smirk, moved so that she could see it as well. Five letters in black ink were roughly scrawled across the page. YHHCSS.

"YHHCSS?" She said. "Any idea what that could be?"

"Maybe some sort of initials," Peter said.

"And you happen to know a lot of people with those initials?" She asked.

He chuckled. "Not yet, but I've heard my fair share of interesting names."

The body was swiftly arranged to be taken to Harvard for Walter's examination and Olivia walked away, the lily left on the stage but the image etched into the soft canvas of her retinas.

* * *

><p>It was only hours later that Astrid had found the person's dental records through a scan of the charred teeth. Dale Wright, a thirty-two year old man from New York. From the people they'd questioned, apparently he'd ducked inside the opera house for a moment after wiping his brow. Although no one knew why the door was open as the opera house had been closed for months.<p>

It was on a small street with a name that Olivia couldn't precisely remember that Mr. Wright had lived. They arrived fourteen hours after they discovered the body.

The house was quaint, painted in a demure and quiet shade of gray. The handles on the front door were made of unvarnished wood, cherry to be precise. It reminded her of a tootsie roll.

_Now I sound like that damn scientist_, she thought.

Peter, herself and four other FBI agents waited behind Broyles as he knocked on the door. No one answered. He looked over to Peter and then kicked open the door and rushed inside. The others swiftly followed him in.

Broyles' entrance into the home was like a conductor's cue that started a chorus of the word "Clear!" through the house.

Olivia walked into the living room of the home where she saw a single brown chair wrapped in corduroy next to the fireplace, and a shiny turquoise couch to seat three across the room.

She wondered where everyone else was.

Then she saw the framed pictures above the fireplace and she laid her hand on the mantle; it was rough like an old tombstone. There were photos of a man and a woman with two children, two girls; they were smiling,

She frowned when she saw the article about three members of a family being killed in a fire next to it. She didn't have to read it to know who's family it was.

She was standing next to the chair, and when she turned she realized that the couch was directly across from it. A prime seat to the turquoise mime placed so close she wondered whether or not he ever heard their voices.

"Hey," interjected Peter as he entered the room. His eyebrows growled together as he saw her stance beside the chair. "What is it?"

She looked at the chair and then back at the couch. "Nothing, I didn't see anything here. Did we find anything else?"

He shook his head, the skin around the corners of his eyes wrinkling slightly when he blinked. "No, there's absolutely no evidence here that this guy was a pyrokinetic, so...," he shrugged nonchalantly, "Maybe Walter's actually right this time about the spontaneous human combustion." The last bit oozed of green annoyance.

"And you sound _so_ eager to agree with Walter," she quipped.

His face scrunched up a little from her comment. "Yea, like that's something I ever actually _try_ to do," he answered.

* * *

><p>"Would someone care to tell me where my package of red vines has gone?" Walter huffed as he strutted about the lab, his white coat flitting like an aggravated seagull.<p>

"They're in the second drawer over there," Astrid answered with a gesture at a cupboard nearby.

Walter viciously yanked the drawer open and picked up the candy with a delighted "Aha!"

The tearing sound of the package was nearly muted as the thick doors to the lab opened with deep, yawning creaks that yielded Peter and Olivia.

"Ah Peter, Agent Dunham, you have news on this third victim I presume?"

"If you call a piece of paper and an empty house news then yes," Peter answered.

"Did you find anything at the house to confirm that this man was indeed a pyrokinetic?"

"No, so does that mean he was a victim of spontaneous human combustion?" Peter asked.

Walter chewed on a red vine, his mouth pursed into a squiggle of contemplation. "In all likelihood, yes. Although there would have to be something to incite the combustion as this man clearly could not have caused this."

"So you mean that something happened to him that caused this," Olivia asked.

Walter raised his eyebrows slightly. "Yes, but I suspect it was more of a some_one_ who caused these people to combust."

"You mean someone murdered them?" Astrid asked.

"Unfortunately so, for these people to have combusted there must have been a sudden transfer of energy into their bodies which would excite the particles in their bodies and produce heat. Essentially this person would have been the catalyst." Walter said.

"You mean there was another person who was an actual pyrokinetic who caused this?" Peter asked.

Walter nodded.

Peter crossed his arms with a sigh. "And here I thought we had finally left the realm of conspiracy theories. Why would someone want to murder these people?"

"I've checked their records," Astrid said. "They have nothing in common; the first victim was a businessman, the second an editor and the third a pilot."

"So why these three people then?" Olivia asked.

"As they say, it's for them to know and us to find out," Peter answered.

Olivia nibbled on her lower lip slightly. "Apparently, I'm uhh, gonna go over their files a bit more, see if I can find anything," she said and disappeared into her office.

* * *

><p>Peter stood over the tattered scraps of paper; they reminded him of a war-torn flag, shreds of a harbinger of hope. The most coherent phrase he could form was:<p>

TO ERR AT THEE. I LEAVE. YHHCSS.

But even then coherency was a stretch at best.

"Hey," Astrid said over his shoulder. "How's the message coming?"

Peter shrugged. "About as well as the leads on this case," he motioned vaguely at the papers. "This is the best I could come up with."

He moved aside so Astrid could look over them, hopefully catching something he missed with her linguistically trained eyes.

She stopped for a moment. "Hey Peter."

He turned. "Yea?"

"Have you tried looking at this like a scrambled message? Or an anagram?"

He approached the table again, one arm crossed and the other halfway to stroking his chin. "No, I haven't."

She looked over her shoulder. "You should see this."

He paced forward slowly, his steps hindered slightly by proverbial lead bricks that weighed on his feet. He moved next to Astrid at the lab bench, her fingers placed on the edges of several letters in the message.

"These letters," she said, "when put together, spell SECRETARY."

* * *

><p><strong>BAM! Yes... a bit of a cliffie there I suppose, but fear not, I anticipate that chapter eight will arrive within the next week. As always, please leave a review and let me know what you think :)<strong>


	8. Shatter

A/N: Alright, this is it. From here on out things only pick up speed, they will not slow down.

Here. We...

_Go._

* * *

><p><span>Chapter Eight: Shatter<span>

It was only after Astrid pointed out the hidden word that others took shape. He scanned over the other letters, mentally scrambling them until they fell into cohesive patterns of words.

It was when some of the letters formed the word OLIVE that he snapped a piece of chalk and scribbled the words on the board. An avalanche of combinations tumbled through his brain, careening through any other notion of things previously considered.

If the message had something to do with Olivia (which he was assuming from the term 'Olive'; it was a nickname that she'd told him that Nick Lane had called her) then it had just jumped a few meters up his priority list.

He apparently worked on it for hours and only realized how late it was when Astrid said she was taking Walter home, and that Olivia had already left hours before.

_She didn't even say anything_, Peter thought. How unusual.

"Son," Walter had said to him. "You will come home later... won't you?"

Peter nodded, not turning from the chalkboard. "Yea Walter I will, I just want to finish this first," he said.

It was three in the morning when he finally set the piece of chalk down, whittled to little more than an ivory stub. The board was laced with curves and swoops of letters that were later crossed over with thick slashes and scratches as he went through each combination.

By that time, his eyes were heavy like lead and the farthest he made it from the chalk board was the couch in the lab.

He dreamt of olive trees that night, but for some reason, one had red olives instead of green.

* * *

><p>The milkshake was like a creamy explosion of strawberries and sugary syrups on Walter's tongue as he shuffled along the sidewalk back to the lab. He was delighted when Asparagus had agreed to let him go the shop; it was only a few blocks from Harvard after all.<p>

The sidewalk was surprisingly vacant for a Thursday afternoon, something that Walter was grateful for as he paid little attention to his path as he devoured his milkshake.

It was when he bumped into a rigid form that didn't move in the slightest did Walter look up. He was extremely exasperated as he had been down to the last drops of his strawberry milkshake.

"Hello Walter."

Walter looked at the face of September, completely stoic under the shadow of his impeccable black fedora. Walter hadn't seen him in a long time, and the last time he had didn't bear the greatest amount of fondness in his mind.

"What are you doing here?" Walter asked.

"We need to speak," September said. "Those letters are important, you need to pay attention to them."

"Do they have something to do with Peter?"

September answered with a tilt of his head and moved to walk past Walter, who grabbed September's arm to stop him.

Walter was extremely surprised to discover that September's arm was warm, more so than one would normally expect for a humanoid body.

But then, Walter had no evidence to suggest that Observers were human in any sense.

September looked at him again. "The letters are important Walter."

"But how could you know that unless you were there?"

September dislodged his arm from Walter's grasp.

Walter looked from September's arm to his face and ran his hands through his hair as his hands trembled. It all made so much sense and yet confused him to a dizzying degree.

"You're the pyrokinetic," Walter said.

"Yes," September answered.

"But... but why kill those people?" Walter stammered.

September's face didn't waver in the slightest. "These events were destined to occur... and thus... I could not avoid them."

When September finished he stepped away from Walter and carried on.

And when Walter turned on his heel with a thousand questions ready to spill from his mind, the Observer was gone.

Walter was running at an incredible pace through the halls of Harvard University when he slammed (literally) into Astrid.

"Walter," she said. "What's the rush all about?"

Walter stood up quickly as he explained, his hands whipping through the air in frantic gestures.

"And that is why I need to find Peter and Agent Dunham immediately," he said.

"Okay Walter, Peter's in the lab but I haven't seen Olivia yet."

"Well then let's go. Besides, I'm sure Gene needs to be milked."

* * *

><p>Peter was trying to the resist the urge to smack himself in the face for utter stupidity as Walter explained the encounter that he'd just had with the Observer.<p>

_If there were an Oscar for stupidity..._ he thought.

The pieces were coming together in a frightening tapestry before him while it felt as if the ground beneath his feet was breaking apart. The Observer said that the letters were important.

Having deciphered the message, Peter understood why.

"Walter, let me show you something," he said and led him over to the chalkboard that he'd whittled ivory chalk on; the white streaks on his clothes was evidence of that.

"This is what I got from those letters after Astrid pointed out one word to me."

"And what word would that happen to be?" Walter asked, not yet looking at the chalkboard.

"Secretary," Peter answered.

Walter's face tensed, fell and shuddered all in one jerky motion as he slowly turned to look at the chalk board.

Peter almost told him not to.

But when Walter saw the message scrawled over the board, he only said two words, almost too quiet to be a whisper, but heavy with guilt like an anvil.

"My God," he whispered.

Astrid, who had stood silent behind them both now spoke. "Peter, if this is right..."

He nodded. "I know."

Like hell he knew how to deal with this. It was like he had been taken blindfolded from the Andes and when the blindfold was lifted he was in the Sahara. It was like he'd just played Mozart and Bach on the piano but played them both in the style of Mozart.

He looked at it again.

THE SECRETARY HAS THE OLIVE

He ran his hand over his face, his eyes squinting into the darkness of his palm. He sighed heavily.

"We brought back the wrong Olivia."

* * *

><p>It was twenty minutes later that <em>she<em> showed up. They hadn't called it in to Broyles because they didn't want to be pre-emptive if the message was a load of bull.

But Peter doubted that, as a dishonest nature didn't seem very becoming of the Observers.

He found out that she was there when she placed a hand on his shoulder gently, almost like a feather. He suspected it was her before he even turned to see her face; she was smiling, it reminded him of a doll.

He remembered when he'd first met Olivia's alternate over there. He'd said that his Olivia was darker in the eyes.

Olivia's eyes were green.

This Olivia's eyes were lighter, almost a blue.

After a moment, she spoke. "Hey, what's going on here?"

He pursed his lips slightly, trying not to scowl.

"Olivia, do you remember what you said to me when we met in Baghdad years ago?"

She shrugged lightly as her lips curled into a wry half-smile. "That you should have picked a better meeting spot?"

Peter wanted to drown her in the sarcasm that dripped from her voice, a wanton syrup from the fruits of her rotten labour.

She frowned when she saw his expression and what he guessed were the similar of Walter and Astrid.

"What?" she asked.

"No," he answered.

"No what?"

"When I met Olivia Dunham she asked me back here on a case, she blackmailed me to come back by saying that she had a file one me, a file that no one else supposedly knew about."

She was eerily silent.

"My Olivia Dunham would remember that," his hands were in fists now as he tried to keep the growl out of his voice. "You're not my Olivia," he said through clenched teeth.

He moved to grab her arm and said to Astrid. "Call Broyles, tell him to ge-"

Olivia's alternate punched him in the face.

The entire right side of his face burned as Walter rushed to his aid.

"Peter! Peter are you alright?"

He nodded lazily. "Yea, Walter I'm fine. Where'd she go?"

Walter motioned towards the door that led out of the lab and Peter tore into the hall as another door to the parking lot clicked shut.

He dashed down the hall and smashed the door open, an audible creak drowned out by the hum of a car engine.

Peter looked over to the parking lot to see Olivia's alternate driving away in her car, and for one instant he saw her face, roiling with fury and determination.

He felt like he'd just pushed a slinky off the top step of a flight of stairs.

Except that he had the distinct notion that the slinky would hit a detonator switch when it reached the bottom.

* * *

><p><strong>Well... what did everyone think? Thoughts, theories? Leave me a review and let me know :D<strong>


	9. Incentive

A/N: Hello again :D I now present you with the next update in this little tale. Thanks goes out to my beta Uroboros75 for reading, editing and having a great reserve of patience ;) Also, thanks to my readers for sticking with this fic.

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><p><span>Chapter Nine: Incentive<span>

"You're telling me that not only is there an undercover agent from the Other Side on the loose with a stolen vehicle and possible firearms, but that it's the Agent Dunham from the Other Side?" Broyles said with an extreme amount of exasperation.

"Unfortunately, yes," Peter answered.

Walter let out a frustrated growl. "That deceiving serpentine woman! To think that she had the audacity to weasel herself into our lives. If we'd let her stay much longer she would have coiled her plans around our throats and suffocated us...like a boa constrictor." He paused. "A real 'Bolivia'," he then said.

Peter folded his hands together and rested his forehead on them. There was a weight in his posture and only he knew why; it wasn't what he'd done that burdened him, but what he knew that he'd have to do.

"I need to go back," he said solemnly. "I have to cross back over."

Walter's face filled with shock, every contour billowing slightly with anger. "No, absolutely not."

"Walter..." Peter said.

"No, it's out of the question! Crossing over is far too dangerous." He then lowered his voice slightly, his eyes twinkling with a silent plea. "Walternate is doing this to get you back over there so he can put you in that machine."

"Walter," Peter protested, "I'm from the Other Side. It will be easier for me than anyone else to navigate through there since I won't have a double to worry about."

Walter shook his head slightly. "No. It's still too dangerous. Crossing over could damage the universes further. There has to be another way."He stood from his seat next to Peter and started walking towards the door of the lab, but Peter's reserve of patience had run dry and he stood to protest again.

"Walter, you crossed over once to save someone you loved."

He saw his father stop, but he didn't turn.

"Let me do the same," Peter finished.

Walter turned then, a wry Cheshire grin sprawled over his face. "You know, Peter, it's about time that the two of you got together.

"Peter rolled his eyes slightly. "Walter..."

They both paused as the door to the lab opened. Broyles and Astrid came in.

"Peter," Astrid said, "I just called Olivia's sister and she hasn't seen her."

"Does Rachel know?" Astrid shook her head, her expression hopeful but her eyes sad and dark like a broken vase.

"Hopefully she'll never have to," Peter said with a sigh as he rubbed his eyes, fatigue after him again.

"Peter," Broyles said, "I just got a call from Nina Sharp. She said that 'Olivia' came to Massive Dynamic about an hour ago requesting files on Cortexiphan."

Peter felt his eyebrows scrunch together. "Cortexiphan? Why would she be after that? Couldn't Walternate have just synthesized some on the other side?"

"Perhaps the compounds required to produce Cortexiphan are not present on the other side due to the Blight," Walter chimed in. "But even then, for the other Olivia to have it now would be highly dangerous."

"And why is that?" Broyles asked.

"Belly and I designed Cortexiphan specifically for children, since we hypothesized that a child's abilities are close to limitless. Bolivia's abilities have been limited because of her experiences with her environment and the consequential limiting of her imagination."

"Maybe she's not after it for herself," Peter said.

The attention shifted to him, one arm crossed and supporting the elbow of his other hand as he spoke. "Maybe she's after it because Walternate knows that Olivia has Cortexiphan in her body."

A long pause filled the room, bending around the contours of Walter's equipment and swirling around Peter's throat like vines. He swallowed thickly.

"Peter," Broyles said, "I'm assigning you an escort until we capture the alternate Olivia. I've just put up an alert on her license plate and I've already got two teams searching for her."

"Good. Where are they?" asked Peter. "I'll go and give them a hand."

"No," Broyles answered sternly. "You're going to Massive Dynamic with Walter and Astrid to talk to Nina Sharp."

"Look, Broyles," Peter said. "I've spent the last few weeks with her. I know how she acts and thinks. I'd be a better help out there than I would be at Massive Dynamic!" His last sentence was tinted with rage, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw Walter frown.

"Be that as it may, Peter, she also knows you. She's spent the last few weeks with you, and right now that concerns me a lot more."

Broyles turned and left the lab as Peter sat back on a chair, his entire body burning and aching from something that he couldn't quite describe. His throat was tight as his shoulders hunched over the rest of his body and his hands curved over his face, his eyes squeezed shut.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, gentle and soothing as it smoothed circles on his back. "Don't worry, son," Walter whispered. "We'll get her back."

* * *

><p><strong>Please leave a review on your way out, I'd love to hear from you guys! Let me know what you think :D<strong>


	10. Fugitive

A/N: Hello again :D Since I finished writing yet another chapter so recently I thought I would give you all another chapter to enjoy. And this is one you don't want to miss.

And just a question but... where did everyone go? I feel like some of my readers are disappearing :(

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta work :)

* * *

><p><span>Chapter Ten: Fugitive<span>

Peter's hand cupped his chin as he leaned against the window of the FBI car. It sped through the streets of New York, sunlight continually splattered across his face, causing him to squint and blink until a tree or building mercifully blocked out the sun.

He really wished that he had his sunglasses.

It wasn't the only thing that he wished that he had at that moment. His thoughts constantly drifted to the multiple contingencies of what might have happened - or was already happening - to Olivia. The notion of her being trapped in another universe, held prisoner by the man who tried to use him as the power source for a deadly machine, terrified him; though not nearly as much as the though that Walternate had wanted nothing from her and had gotten impatient. Peter could only imagine what a man of Walternate's calibre would do.

He tried not to picture Olivia's vacant eyes as the driver passed another car. He hadn't said anything on the way to New York, and he really had no desire to. He was too caught up in the web of fear and blame that had been spun around him.

"Peter," Walter interjected.

"Yea, Walter?"

"What kind of car did Olivia drive?"

"A black SUV," Peter replied. "Why?"

"Because I believe that we just passed her."

Peter turned sharply in his seat; he heard his heartbeat thumping in his ears.

"What?"

"Look back there," Walter said with a motion of his hand.

Both Peter and Astrid turned to look out the back window. Peter had to strain his neck to see over the back seat as he searched the vehicles trailing them.

It took him a few moments for him to spot the SUV, but when he did he thought for a moment that Walter had been mistaken, as he didn't recognize the driver behind the sunglasses and saw no indication of blonde hair.

But when she took off the sunglasses for an moment, Peter recognized her immediately, and she was close enough to spot his heavy gaze.

If only looks could kill...

He watched as her lips pressed into a flat line and her face hardened into a wicked glare. Peter could feel her malice in the air, thick and heavy like tar. Then her features curled into a sly sneer, her mouth curving like a serpent, as she veered off the street into an adjacent alley, the wheels of her car screeching against the black pavement.

"Turn around," Peter said frantically.

The agent driving looked at him for an instant and then back to the road. "Mr. Bishop, I can't do that. I'm under strict orders from Agent Broyles to -"

"I don't care if he ordered you to prance around a goddamned circle, turn this car around!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't," the agent insisted.

"This may be our only chance to catch her," Astrid added. "Now that she's seen use, she knows we're closing in. She'll most likely abandon her car and try to leave the State. By then it will be even harder to catch her."

"Snakes are like that," Walter said. "The moment they realize that they've been seen, they disappear." He smiled slightly before adding, "Much like chocolate chips do into ice cream."

The agent pursed his lips; Peter could see the tension in his face as he silently unlocked his seatbelt.

"Look," he said. "If I disobey orders, I could lose my job. I have a family to support."

"Well," Peter said, "There is an easy way out."

He looked at Peter quizzically. "What?"

Peter lunged across the seat for the lock on the agent's door, trying to reach the small button on the driver's door that would unlock it. It was very difficult to do so with the agent attempting to push him off, managing to give him a few strong punches in the gut. Peter reached a hand up and punched him across the face in retaliation.

"Peter!" Astrid said in surprise.

Peter didn't expect anything of them; he didn't want to drag them into his reckless endeavours when he knew the consequences would come back and bite him in the ass later on.

He flicked the switch on the door and threw it open, unhooking the agent's seatbelt and shoving him out the door a moment later. Peter sighed in relief when he saw the agent land amongst some tall shrubbery in front of a library. _At least it was a soft landing,_ he thought.

He closed the door and hopped into the driver's seat. "Astrid," he said. The junior agent looked at him, shock pooling in her almond eyes. "Do you want me to let you and Walter out? If you don't want to do this, I won't force you."

"Peter, I'm staying," she said.

They both looked at Walter, who raised an eyebrow.

"What?" he said.

"You with us Walter?" Peter said as he looked back at the road for an instant, making sure that he didn't hit anyone.

"Absolutely," he said, almost bouncing, "I haven't had this much excitement in months. I really wish that I had brought some popcorn."

Astrid smirked slightly.

"Alright, then let's go," he said. "Hang on Astérix; I suspect that this may be a bit of a bumpy ride."

They both jolted back in their seats as Peter pressed down on the gas.

* * *

><p>They raced through the downtown streets of New York, buildings and faces blurring as Peter drove his foot into the gas pedal. He felt the pressure against his shoulders as surmounting acceleration pinned him to his seat. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears like a drum, a constant, rhythmic beat. <em>Thump thump thump.<em>

He turned the wheel sharply as the SUV veered down the alley Bolivia had fled to moments before. Peter's eyes searched rapidly across the ominous facades of the alley. He wasn't one to trust appearances; they were as deceptive as chameleons, changing from the intriguing to the menacing in an instant.

Astrid and Walter had fallen silent in the back seats. The tension in the air was palpable; it was as thick and viscous as molasses. Peter snuck a peek at the two in the back: Astrid's eyes were scanning out her window while Walter looked out his respective window, his eyes lost in something that Peter was sure had little to do with their current circumstances. As the alley narrowed, he was forced to slow down, and the car's gradually relenting speed made the cogs and wheels in his brain creak with impatience; Peter Bishop wasn't one for waiting.

But when he saw the black SUV parked in a small niche along the alley, he braked abruptly and jumped out; the licence plate was unmistakable.

He walked up to the SUV and saw the open door. Upon further inspection, he realized that the keys were gone, and perhaps a little more disturbingly, there was no sign that she'd even been in the car;

Peter wasn't sure whether to take that as a good or bad sign.

The alley was nothing short of foreboding. The railing of fire escapes crawled up the walls like obsidian vines, and the air was cool and stale.; it reminded him slightly of a morgue. The bricks along the walls were mottled and dark, casting oblique shadows along the ground and slicing through the form of her SUV.

_Light and dark cast in shades of grey_, Peter thought.

He heard a noise slip out from a window above him, and he dashed into the building, any notion of knocking cast aside, dust whirling around him in a hazy tornado. He peered through the murky cloud and discerned a footprint on the floor, highlighted by a few milky rays of sunlight. A few more left a deft little trail up the stairs, leading to higher floors.

_Nice try, Buttercup_, he thought as he ascended the staircase.

He was careful with his steps as he crept, trying to prevent the aged wood from moaning and creaking. He didn't want to give her any advanced warning; after all, she didn't deserve one.

A soft squeak piped out from under his left foot. He tried not to curse, gritting his teeth together as he quickly covered the last few steps before pressing his back against the wall by the closest door. He could feel the cool, dull surface of the wall on his skin through his clothes, pressing against the chamber of his pounding heart; he could have sworn that the walls were throbbing slightly from it as well.

He was about to barge into the first room, but he then realized that he didn't have a gun, and he cursed Broyles for giving him the damn escort, who of course would always have a gun. But patience wasn't something that he could allow for in his situation, so he quickly ducked into the room, fists curled tight and jaw set thickly.

He found nothing. The room was sparse, no furniture or object capable of providing a suitable hiding place. He still took a moment to check the closet, which was little more than a nook in the wall.

That's when he heard a sound: it was thick and hollow like the falling of an old tree, but loud enough for Peter to know what it was from. He turned swiftly, a rush of air careening past his ears as he ran out the door, seeing a wisp of blonde hair flick around the corner at the end of the hall. He turned the corner sharply, his feet losing a bit of grip on the carpet, though he quickly regained himself. He saw the open window at the end of the corridor and leaped out the window without a second thought. He fell weightlessly for a few moments before landing amongst several dark bags, and was immediately overwhelmed by a thick, revolting stench.

_Lovely_, Peter thought as he hopped out and continued down the alley. He could see Bolivia now, sprinting quickly, almost frantically a little farther down the alley. He picked up his pace and her form grew, expanding against the bleak backdrop of the alley like a paint stain. She rounded another corner and Peter followed, only to see that she had found a dead end. He almost smiled.

"You've got no where left to go now," he said as he slowed down from his run. "From where I'm standing, you're better off giving up."

His eyes widened slightly when she raised her gun.

"Are you still sure about that now, Peter?"

_JesusfuckingChrist._

"You really gonna shoot me?" he asked, feigning scepticism.

She smiled, coy and slight like a viper.

"Only if I have to," she said. "Though I really don't want to. It'd be a shame to ruin such a fine piece of man."

Her words made Peter's skin crawl.

"Pity that you had to go and ruin another woman to figure that out."

"She isn't another woman Peter," she said. "She's me."

Peter shook his head, ripe anger bubbling in his veins.

"Not by a long shot."

He then heard a flurry of voices, and seconds later, dozens of FBI agents swarmed the cramped space of the alley and quickly surrounded Bolivia. _Thank you Astrid_, Peter thought with great relief.

"Guess they called in the cavalry," Peter said nonchalantly. "Like I said, might as well give up now."

There was something hard and dark in her eyes, like diseased blood. Her jaw tensed and she shook her head before dropping her gun and gritting her teeth.

She was pissed as hell and Peter couldn't have been more pleased. And as they handcuffed her he stepped forward to whisper in her ear.

"I'll be seeing you soon Buttercup."

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><p><strong>Dun Dun Dun DUN... So what happens now? Wait for the next few chapters to find out ;D As always, reviews are appreciated :)<strong>


	11. Aid

A/N: Hello again my fellow readers, here is the next chapter for your enjoyment :D Thanks go to Uroboros75 for the beta work :)

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><p><span>Chapter Eleven: Aid<span>

"What concerns me is the fact that this isn't the first time we've had a doppelganger from the Other Side pose as someone from Over Here," Nina Sharp said as she led Peter, Walter and Astrid through a lean, white hallway in Massive Dynamic. "As I recall, Agent Francis also fell victim to such events," she added.

"Charlie was killed by a shape shifter who took over his persona," Peter said. "This woman literally is Olivia, just from the Other Side."

Nina spared a brief glance towards Peter as she walked. "It's a bit disconcerting, isn't it? Knowing that someone can get under our skins that easily." A door swished open in front of them as the white planes and sharp angles of Nina's office gleamed into existence.

Nina strolled behind her desk and sat down before motioning for the others to take a seat.

"I for one," she continued, "find it highly disconcerting that there are other versions of ourselves - including myself, in all likelihood - that could impersonate us so easily and almost get away with it."

"Almost?" Astrid piped in.

Nina folded her hands in front of her. "When Olivia -her alternate, that is- was here, she seemed rather aloof. She acted..." Nina paused, gathering her words. "...almost as if she had never seen me before."

"Perhaps that's a sign that there is no Nina Sharp on the other side," Peter said.

"Oh I think that's a bit pre-emptive, Peter," Walter chimed in. "The more likely scenario is that their Olivia simply hasn't _met_ Nina on the Other Side."

Nina pressed her lips lightly against her gloved hands; Peter could tell that she was thinking pensively.

"So," she said. "In all likelihood, this means that our Olivia Dunham is trapped on the Other Side."

"There's no doubt about it at all," Peter said as he took a piece of paper from his coat pocket and set it on the table in front of Nina.

It showed the anagram, scrambled at first into its strange form and then decoded a little further down the page. Nina furrowed her brow, and Peter knew that wasn't a good sign.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, her voice having lost a good margin of its intensity.

"We found pieced it together at the crime scenes of pyrokinesis victims. The letters were burned into pieces of paper."

She turned the page slightly, scrutinizing the letters further. "Do we know who is responsible for this?"

"No," Peter and Astrid said.

Walter however, said a quiet "Yes."

Three heads turned to him, the spotlight shining brightly on him. Peter felt his jaw drop, a severe amount of shock pulsing through his veins. He couldn't understand how Walter knew, and more importantly why he didn't tell them.

"Walter," he said, "what are you talking about?

The man sighed and shook his head; Peter could see a slight tremble in his lower lip.

"Walter," he said again, this time more gently. "What happened?"

Walter swallowed and took a breath. Peter thought that he could see a tear twinkling in his one eye.

"I went out for a milkshake, and on my way back from the bistro... I encountered the Observer."

There was a pregnant silence in the room that quickly settled like lead on all their shoulders until Astrid snapped the silence.

"Walter," she said as she stepped over to him, her hands falling gently on his shoulders. "What did the Observer say to you?"

Walter's face was flushed slightly; Peter could tell that he was upset, but wasn't sure what about.

"He told me that the letters were important," he said with a sniffle. "But... I learned something else, and it was mostly out of my own curiosity."

"What Walter?" Nina pressed. "What did you learn?"

Walter took a sharp breath and closed his eyes, the wrinkles on his face deepening momentarily before he spoke again. "The Observer is the pyrokinetic."

Another pause filled the room, thick and dark like shadow.

"How is that possible?" Astrid asked.

"How is not the most difficult question, Agent Farnsworth," Nina said. "The Observers do not view time as we do. In all likelihood they could have ventured to a time where such an ability is prominent among humans." She looked back at Walter. "A better question would be _why_."

Walter's face was solemn and his calm tone verged on the edge of taunting; Peter wanted nothing more than to embrace him in a kind hug.

"He said that he saw that it would happen, and that because of that he could not avoid it."

Peter crossed his arms. "Then he must have known about Olivia." He felt a few more pieces tumble onto the picture in his mind, and after a few more fell in a deep chill ran through his blood. He resisted the urge to shiver. "Which means that he knew that our Olivia was going to be replaced with theirs."

"It would seem so," Nina said.

"Why didn't you tell us, Walter?" asked Peter.

The man shook his head gently; his shoulders quivered and his eyes were shaded a ghostly red. His lips curved downward as he leaned forward in his chair.

"Because," he said. "I didn't remember. After you showed me the anagram I forgot my encounter with the Observer completely."

A gentle sob tumbled from him, and Astrid placed her hands more firmly on his shoulders.

"Shh... Walter," she said softly. "It's okay. What else did the Observer say?"

Walter swallowed thickly before looking to Peter.

"Son," he said. "I'm sorry."

Peter nodded lightly. The blurry mural of Walter's guilt was sharply evident, blinking in a harsh red against a soft blue backdrop.

"I know, Walter," he responded.

"Peter," Walter continued. "Olivia said that it was an Observer who gave her the drawing of you in the machine before she crossed over. The Observers could simply be orchestrating this entire charade so that you end up in that machine!"

"It's a risk that we have to take," Nina said, cutting in before Peter could answer. "If Agent Dunham is trapped on the Other Side, then it is imperative that we get her back."

"Of course it is! Don't you think that I know that, Nina?" Walter said, a thick, gritty steel in his voice. "But it is also imperative that we do not give Walternate the means to destroy our universe. If he has Peter, then he will have control over every one of us."

Peter stroked his chin lightly. Something heavy and dark had settled on his chest, and it pressed down on him, coiling his muscles into thick knots.

There was still only one option that he could see.

"Walter, I have to cross over."

Walter scoffed lightly. "Well that much is evident. But how exactly do you intend on doing so, Peter? My door is destroyed and we have no Cortexiphan children to open a door for us."

"There is another way," Nina said.

Peter looked at her, and she appeared slightly flustered, unsure of herself. She took a breath and continued, her eyes trained on Peter.

"When you returned from the Other Side, you mentioned that you returned over here with the use of a particle accelerator. Based on your descriptions, Massive Dynamic has been working on a prototype for the last two months and we just recently began testing."

Peter felt something inside him spark and fill him with warm hope, spreading over his body like melted butter.

"How soon can it be ready?"

Nina made a sound of frustration. "Peter, this device is merely a prototype, perhaps in a few weeks..."

"Olivia doesn't have weeks!" he retorted swiftly. The calming ambiance that had washed over him only moments before was gone, replaced by a steaming hot anger that was fueled by his impatience. He paused for a moment and realized that his breath was pouring from his body in thick waves, heavy with anger. He relaxed, a few the knots in his shoulders melting as he ran a hand over his chin; the stubble bristled against his palm.

He sighed, "We don't know how much time Olivia has. We need to cross over _now_."

Nina's shoulders fell slightly as Peter looked over to Astrid, whose big eyes were wide with concern as her one arm was wrapped around Walter's shoulders. What a broken little family.

"Peter," Nina said. "Come with me. Astrid and Walter as well."

She walked to a door outlined against a white wall in the office, beneath a particularly sharp portion of architecture. Peter imagined a set of twin talons reaching for him, preparing to sink its jet-black claws into his shoulders.

The lab was similar to the rest of Massive Dynamic in one particularly uncanny characteristic: it was stark white. Aside from the occasional splash of silver or black lacing a piece of equipment, the lab was bathed in white. It made Peter think of a morgue.

"Peter," Nina interjected. "I'm sure you remember our lead scientist Brandon Fayette." She motioned to the young man with a shag of brown hair peering into a microscope. He looked up and Peter nodded to him.

"How are the tests progressing, Brandon?" Nina asked.

He pursed his lips before answering. "Well, we've tested the various particles for any signs of significant stress or damage after being under the influence of the particle accelerator, and so far the results have been promising."

"Good," Nina answered. "I'm afraid that we're going to have to cut the tests short, as Peter has need of it."

Brandon raised an eyebrow and quirked his lips to the left significantly. "Why?"

Peter didn't spare him any of it. "Agent Dunham is trapped in the other universe."

He had never seen eyebrows rise quite_ that_ high before.

"So then, the Agent Dunham who was here today requesting those files..."

"Was her alternate," Peter answered.

Brandon opened his mouth. "Huh," he said with a huff.

"When can the device be ready?" Walter asked.

Brandon looked to the accelerator and then back to the trio. "Anytime, really. I just can't guarantee its reliability."

"It's a chance we have to take," Peter said. "Do you have any idea of a crossover point or time that we could use?"

He held up a finger. "Yes, actually. After the incident a few months ago where the two universes merged momentarily, we've been monitoring the frequencies of both universes."

He strolled over to a desk and sat down, his fingers moving quickly over the keyboard as a slight glow shone on his face. There was a momentary pause before he said anything.

"Hmm," he said, eyes still glued to the screen.

"Hmm what?" asked Peter.

Brandon looked to him and then back to the screen. "Oh, nothing. It's just strange."

"What is?" asked Astrid.

"The frequencies are projected to match later today... at 3:14 PM. Pretty neat coincidence if you ask me."

"Are there any optimal cross over points?" Peter asked.

Brandon clicked a few more keys on the keyboard. Peter had to resist the urge to walk over and stand over his shoulder. When he leaned back in his chair slightly Peter became concerned.

"The location that I'm getting is... Reiden Lake."

"That's not possible," Walter protested. "Reiden Lake is the focal point for these incidents, the fabric of the universe is highly permeable and delicate there."

"Probably why that location turned up then," Brandon said. "It's easy to break through there."

_Space isn't the only thing that's broken there_, Peter thought distantly.

"Then Reiden Lake it is," Nina said as she looked to the others. "I'll have the accelerator transported over to Walter's lab."

Peter nodded at her. "Thank you Nina."

He turned to follow Walter and Astrid out, only to hear Walter off on another tangent about some food that was associated with one of his faded memories.

"We're about to cross over to another universe. Of course this is a time for lemon-meringue pie!"

Peter smirked. Only Walter could crave pie at ten AM.

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><p><strong>Thoughts? Theories? Leave me a review and let me know :D<strong>


	12. Fury

A/N: Hello again, I bring you the next update in this little tale ;) Both this chapter and chapter thirteen are fairly intense, so prepare yourselves.

Thank you to Uroboros75 for the beta work :)

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><p><span>Chapter Twelve: Fury<span>

He stood outside the room, watching his reflection flicker on the pale glass as he drummed his fingers on edge of the window. His reflection was very faint, lacking any concrete amount of colour or shape. A ghost. He focused on the glass and the slight curve it held against the light. Minute black lines ran through its heart like barbed wire through a prison. The amount of tension in his shoulders was indescribable, and the magnitude of his rage was beyond the range of any scale.

He felt like an idiot. An absolute _fucking_ idiot.

Peter Bishop didn't like being deceived; in fact, he _hated_ it.

That was the main inspiration for the furious shade of red he could feel creeping over his cheeks at that moment. It was also the most probable cause for the particular clench of his jaw and the tight curl of his fingers against his palm. If he pressed any harder he was sure that his fingernails would draw blood.

He'd been watching the interview for several minutes, and his frustration grew greater with every one that passed. The agent in the interrogation room with Bolivia asked the questions in quick, even strokes, like the keys of a typewriter. But Bolivia clearly had an ounce of cunning that he wasn't aware of; she deftly snaked her way out of each question like a sparrow dodging bullets.

They might as well have handed a revolver to a rookie.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Broyles approach. His lips were tight in an expression of slight anxiety.

"Any progress?" he asked as he placed his tense hands on the edge of the window.

"If you call obvious manipulation progress, then you've got a winner," Peter said dryly.

"Not good then," Broyles answered.

Peter turned away from the window. "Broyles, she's spinning circles around this guy and he can't even tell. Let someone go in there who actually has a shot at getting to her."

His expression fell into the stoic stupor that Peter disliked. "And who would you suggest?"

"Me," he answered.

Broyles shook his head. "No. Out of the question."

Peter was infuriated; he made an exaggerated motion towards the glass that housed the red-haired vixen.

"How else do you expect to get answers? She's not going to give them without a little... _encouragement_."

"And maybe that's exactly what she wants us to do," Broyles quipped.

Peter lowered his arms, his shoulders falling heavily.

"Perhaps this alternate wants to get us emotional - get _you_ emotional, Peter - to get some answers of her own."

Peter scoffed, Broyles just didn't _get it_. He hadn't spent months with this woman, believing her to be someone who she in fact wasn't. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing no reflection.

"She's been here for months, Broyles. If she wanted answers she's probably already got them by now. I think it's time we get _our_ share."

Broyles sighed, his head leaning in on his chest slightly before he answered.

"Alright," he said begrudgingly. "I'll give you five minutes, no more."

It didn't take him long to summon the other agent out of the room. Peter watched as he left; he was dazed, his face ripe with confusion. When he saw Peter walk towards the door, he became silent and in somewhat stoic. Peter saw a brief flash of surprise on his face before he shut the door.

He turned to Bolivia, the deceptive lion with the crimson mane. Now he saw a cowardly lion that'd bitten off a morsel larger than it could chew.

"Well, well, well," she said with a thick shot of bravado. "Hello again Peter."

He pulled out the chair, purposely making it squeal loudly against the floor before sitting down. It was only when he sat at the table, hands folded in front of him that he answered.

"Don't be too happy to see me. You won't be in a little while."

She scoffed. "What are ya gonna do?" she asked, arrogance dripping from her voice like gin. "Hit me?"

He looked at her, his pulse thick in his neck.

"No," he said. "I'm going to get some answers and you're going to give them to me."

She raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't?'

"Then I'll break your neck here and now."

She scoffed heavily, almost laughing at his threat.

"And what will that accomplish? I'll be dead, and you'll have nothing to barter your little Olive back."

Now he leaned forward on the table, his face on breaths from her. "Just because your neck's broken doesn't mean that you're dead, Buttercup," he hissed. "It just makes things a little more... interesting." He saw a flinch of something in her eye, fleeting but distinct. "And depending on which spot I hit, it'll also make things very, _very_ painful."

She twisted her lower lip slightly, curling it into a sneer.

"You really think that you can get under my skin don't you? That you can somehow flick a switch inside me and I'll tell you everything you want to know." She smirked again and it made his blood fizz. "It's not gonna be that easy."

Peter slumped back in his chair and looked at her. She was too relaxed, too calm.

She was overconfident.

_Time to up the ante_, he thought as his fingers grazed over the stubble on his chin.

"That's what the Secretary told you to say isn't it?"

Her head snapped up then, eyes blazing with something that he couldn't place. Her confidence was faltering, and she was caught behind the red borderline of ambition.

"The Secretary didn't tell me to say anything."

"Then what _did_ he tell you?" Peter asked, probing for answers.

She sighed. Then her jaw hardened, her eyes darkening like raw steel.

"You were taken from the Secretary, Peter; you were something that he clearly cherished. He searched forever, trying to get his son back. He had no other choice but to accept a feeling of helplessness." She sat forward, her elbows resting on the table as she folded her arms. "Now look at you, your precious Olive is gone and you really have no way to get her back. How does that _feel_ Peter?"

He didn't think in that next instant. He leapt up from his seat and charged around the table. He grabbed her small wrist between his fingers and began twisting it, his jaw clamped with his rage.

"It feels like this," he said as he twisted her wrist sharply. She grimaced but didn't make a sound. "Or maybe it feel something like this," he continued as he yanked her wrist around and heard a slight _pop_ from her arm. She cringed and tried to muffle a cry of pain.

She looked at him, her face flushed and eyes wide. Her teeth were clenched together, white like chalk.

"It's gonna take a bit more than that Peter," she hissed. "You're forgetting who I was trained by."

His fingers tightened on her arm. "That may be, but you were never trained against _me_." And flung her out of the chair. She landed in a muddled pile of disorientation on the floor, her bangs frizzing over her face as her breaths came thickly.

"Tell me where she is," he said.

She spat at him in response.

He gripped her collar and pushed her against the wall. He could feel the rage boiling through his body, bubbling thickly through his veins. She tried to struggle against him, but he pinned her arms to the wall with his elbows.

"Where is she?" he raged, his voice almost screaming at her.

"You want her back that badly?" she scoffed. "Damn, you must really have something goin' with her!"

He snapped her head against the wall and her eyes closed momentarily. When she opened them again there was something hideously sinister in them, crushing and ferocious like an obsidian chimera.

"You'll never get her back," she said, her voice heavy with venom. "She's probably locked away somewhere, where the Secretary's waiting for her to snap, waiting for her to spill everything she knows."

That was it. Any ounce of restraint in Peter crumbled beneath his torrential rage as the palm of his hand met the side of her face in an explosive slap.

His patience was dead and gone.

"You listen to me, _Buttercup_," he hissed. "You tell me right this _fucking_ second where she is or I will throw you out the goddamned window!"

"You wouldn't," she said, half-disbelieving.

"Yes," he said as he tightened his grip on her collar. "I would."

He saw the difference then, screaming in bright orange flames in the plane of his existence. She was the farthest thing from his Olivia. She was impetuous, stubborn and arrogant. She was the polar opposite of Olivia.

"Tell me, _now_," he hissed.

She grimaced. "I don't know where she's being held, and I hardly knew anything about the damn switch aside from me coming over here."

"Give me your best guess and I'll consider not crushing your throat," he answered.

"No," she answered, like he expected.

Then he released her and she fell to the floor, gasping slightly as she snaked a hand up to her throat. After a moment she looked at him, and he made no motion towards her.

"I knew you'd say that," he said. "Because your best guess is as good as mine," he paused, watching the anger replace the fear in her eyes. "If anything, the Secretary would keep her where he can personally monitor her and I can think of no other place better suited for that than Liberty Island."

She made no response.

He turned to leave and said with a heavy dose of sarcasm, "Enjoy your long reign in the Kingdom of Incarceration, princess."

Then, just as he was about to press the button to be let out he heard her speak in a voice raw from suffocation.

"You do realize that this doesn't end here with me."

He turned from the door, watching her still take in deep breaths as she looked at him. He could see faint bruises blotching up her throat, marring the ivory pillar.

"Oh no, Buttercup," started Peter. "The game hasn't even started yet."

He exited the door, leaving a nonplussed Bolivia behind.

Broyles said nothing to Peter as he emerged from the interrogation room. He nodded calmly to him, whose eyes were unwavering in their morose conviction. A moment passed, then Peter broke away from him and longed the hallway out.

He didn't see the slight curl of Bolivia's mouth against her bruised skin.

It was sly and undeniably serpentine.

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><p><strong>Please review, reviews are love :D<strong>


	13. Unhinged

A/N: Hello again. First of all I'm sorry for the long wait, RL has been a bit hectic lately but I'm back now :D As I mentioned with chapter 12, this chapter is also fairly intense in terms of emotion, so prepare yourselves. Thanks again to my beta Uroboros75.

Off we go.

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><p><span>Chapter Thirteen: Unhinged<span>

Reality had tumbled from her realm of control, lost somewhere in the suffocating confines of her cell as she lost all sense of perception. To Olivia, up was down and down was up, and anything lateral was arbitrary.

Her body was heavy, brimming with thick waves of exhaustion. She blinked a few times; the momentary flick of her eyelids didn't make much difference, for the darkness was constant.

She turned on her side, curling her knees against her chest and placed her hands next to her face. She could see the faint outline of the door, etched in a pastel that harbored malice and fury. For a moment, she thought she saw something, a faint ripple along the outline of the door, but she quickly discounted it as a trick born of light's wicked sense of humour and her own confusion.

She didn't trust a lot anymore.

But in the thick shadows and swirls of her own delirium she could still see a face, faint with the wear of her disorientation, yet still recognizable. Gentle curves made out the face, beard curling over the chin as the eyes swirled like azure whorls.

_Peter._

The relief of silence was only momentary. The door cracked open and light spilled in, splattering over her stiff body as she recoiled from the unusual brightness. After a moment, she looked around the shield of her eyes and blinked; there were shadows that bled onto the light in the doorway.

She squinted, but still couldn't make out the faces. A racing hope in her flourished. Perhaps someone had finally come for her, from some distant wonder where the only things that existed were tiger lilies and gum drops.

But even fairy tales had their villains.

"Olivia," said a stern voice, thick and gruff like a sharp wind striking her ears. She knew not to ignore it; she'd learned never to ignore voices that boomed like thunder. She stood slowly, her muscles unwinding from their thick coils and knots as she stepped out of her cell.

The hallway was bright, but after the shock of light that had burst into her eyes in her cell it was a mild irritation. She blinked a few times, trying to clear away the few pesky spots blinking on her eyes as they escorted her down the corridor. She walked in front of them; they didn't have to lead her anymore.

She knew exactly where they were taking her. It was always that same place, that same room; the one where light was swallowed up into the blinding miasma of white that exploded over the walls like oil.

No matter how many times she tried to wash it away, it was always there; never ending, never dimming. The bright light that they hung over her head made it even worse.

They shoved her into the chair. It was plastic, and the material squeaked lightly beneath her form as she regained her balance.

She looked across the table. There _he_ was, sitting stoically with his hands folded tightly across the table from her. His lips were pressed together tightly, thin and pale like the sinewy length of a whip. His eyes were dark, thick and deep like tar. Olivia felt that if she stared at him too long, the onyx abyss of his fury would swallow her as well.

"This is what it has come to, Olivia," he said with no hint of pity. "Down to my questions."

She looked down to her hands, suddenly fascinated by the thin lines that had begun to curl over her red palms and crinkled when she flexed her fingers. Her veins trailed over the span of her hands, weaving between the arches of her knuckles.

"Did you hear me?" He asked with a little more force, impatience intruding on his tone.

She looked up from her hands, swallowing any notion of fear into the thick coil in her stomach and replied thickly.

"Yes."

Walternate tapped his thumbs together once before replying.

"Good, then I'll begin."

She knew by that he meant the interrogation; but as for his tactics, she was next to clueless. He stood and walked around to the side of the table, placing his hands lightly on the edge.

"Tell me, _Olivia_," he began. "What do you know about Walter Bishop?"

She looked straight ahead, ignoring his towering form. Her lips didn't move.

Walternate leaned over her a little more. "Come now, Agent Dunham. Aren't you going to tell me about the man who's responsible for bringing us into this little quandary?"

A mess of images and thoughts flooded her, torrents of words that she wanted to spit in his face with vile fury; but her exhausted body could only allow her lips to curl into a single word.

"No."

Walternate moved back from the table and sat down in his chair, facing her again.

"That, Olivia," he said with no notion of sarcasm, "is not an answer."

Her eyes had fallen to her wrists, linked by a glinting silver chain and twin cuffs. The silver bracelets coiled around her wrists, metallic snakes seeking sustenance.

She looked back up at Walternate and said nothing; her entire body felt drained, depleted of energy, and exhaustion ran rampant through her veins. She really didn't have the strength for witty remarks.

"Then tell me, Olivia," he said with a little more confidence and far too much bravado for her liking. "Tell me about _Peter_ Bishop."

The muscles in her body stiffened, her spine coiling tightly against the muscles of her back as she felt her heart pick up its pace. It pounded like a hammer against a nail in her chest - _Bang bang bang _- again and again.

She couldn't see her reflection, but something told her that her eyes had bloomed open, eyebrows shooting up towards her hairline.

She should've expected that.

"Is that not why you came back here, Olivia? To retrieve my son?"

She shook her head lightly, perhaps a little too quickly, before replying,

"No."

She cursed inwardly when she heard the stutter in her voice.

A thin smile curled over Walternate's face, the coiling of a whip primed to strike.

"Then what were you here for, if not for my son? Were you here for something else?"

She shook her head again. "No."

She realized at that moment that her hands were clasped together under the table, clammy and cold as sweat beaded in the creases of her hands. She pressed them between her knees in an attempt to subdue the shaking.

Walternate stood promptly, rounding the table with swift movements.

"You're contradicting yourself, Agent Dunham. First you say that you weren't here for my son, and then you say you weren't here for another reason. Which one is it?"

He slapped his palms against the table, and she felt her shoulders tense when he neared, as though shying away from a hungry python.

"Choose one, Olivia," he pressed sharply.

She looked at him; his eyes ignited with dark fury and malice as his angered face glared at her.

She could only find the strength to whisper a shameless "No."

He wrapped one of his hands around her left arm, clamping his fingers down painfully on her skin.

"I'm going to ask you once more, Olivia," he hissed, his face growing closer to hers. "Which one is it?"

Something bubbled in the pit of her stomach, rising through her veins and causing her to shake her head in a frightened manner as she whispered a terrified "No."

Then he slapped her across the face.

The pain was sharp. A brief flash of heat rippled across her left cheek as her face hurtled to the side, her body careening to the right in the chair. She gasped silently in agony.

She hadn't even sat back up when he asked her again.

"Choose one, Olivia. I'm not going to ask you again."

She pushed herself up, this time with a little more strength in her body. Hot adrenaline poured into her body, churning through her veins and igniting a stockpile of her own anger.

"No," she replied, gritting her teeth.

It was then that Walternate pulled out a gun.

All her adrenaline died more quickly than fire in a rainstorm. He clicked the safety off and raised it toward her temple, eyes dark and cold.

"You wouldn't," she whispered. "Then you'll never get Peter back."

"My son was taken from me," he said sternly. "And now, I'm going to take something from him."

Words tumbled from her lips, coherency abandoned for pure pleading.

"Please, don't do this. Don't do this."

He pressed the gun a little harder.

"No, no, no, please."

Her eyes were warm, her face tracked with the damp trails of tears as her eyes drifted out to the guards in the hall, motionless and unwavering.

_So this is how it ends_, she thought as tears gathered on her dark lashes. _In another reality, in an interrogation room, far away from home._

She looked to the men outside the room once more and she swore that she made eye contact with one of them for a fleeting moment, his hazel eyes slightly downcast but fearful. She tried to imagine the conflicting notions of obligation and human compassion, mixing like oil and water beneath the soldier's skin; but her own desperate terror blinded it all.

She pitied them and shut her eyes, willing images of better times to her eyes. Her raw fear boiled through her body, the room bending behind the blurry windows of her tears.

She blinked once, and noticed that the room was still contorting; bending and weaving into awkward shapes that she was certain were not natural. Panic climbed up her throat as she spun around wildly in her seat. What was happening?

Walternate took a step back, his face riddled with bewilderment and frustration, his lips twisted into an expression of pure rage as the room continued to distort. She heard a muffled shout and saw him motion for the two guards to come in and try to grab for her; but to their astonishment, their hands went right through her. She shrunk away as the rough cotton of her jumpsuit ruffled against her skin.

She could barely tell the people apart from the rest of the room as everything blended into an undulating galaxy of white, bending and curling around her. Her heart pounded in her ears. Then a roar tore through the air; she shut her eyes, and her body was propelled out of the chair and fell to the ground. She curled her knees against her chest, waiting for another attack, but none came.

It was then that she heard it: a booming vibration that fluctuated, rising in intensity and then dimming before getting louder again.

There was a crisp scent in the air, fresh and light like mist, and the ground beneath her was soft. Thousands of smooth threads weaved themselves under her body as she opened her eyes.

She was on the edge of a precipice that fell into churning sapphire waves crested with a placid albedineity. She pushed herself into a sitting position, tucking her knees beneath her as she looked to her hands, where an emerald tapestry of grass weaved beneath her pale fingers.

She had crossed over.

She could see New York in the distance, lit with golden sunlight.

She was _home_. There was _sunlight_.

It was beyond any definition of beautiful.

Then she saw the twin silhouettes of the World Trade Center in the distance, and her joy was instantly shattered. The ribbons of her own hope cracked into jagged shards, lodging themselves in her skin. She whimpered slightly, a muffled sob tumbling from her lips. Against her skin she felt a shadow, staining the ivory complexion of her skin. She craned her neck, and her eyes met the bronze gaze of Lady Liberty.

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><p><strong>Please review everyone!<strong>


	14. Memento

A/N: Hello again everyone! Sorry for the long wait, RL has caused me to be rather busy as of late, but rest assured that I am still working on this fic. I have up to chapter eighteen written and ready to post and chapter nineteen is currently WIP. I was going to try and finish this before the season four premiere, but it looks like that won't be happening :P

Many thanks go to my wonderful beta, Uroboros75 :)

Anyways, enjoy! This is a longer chapter, so I hope that it makes up for the wait :)

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><p><span>Chapter Fourteen: Memento<span>

Reiden Lake was a quiet place, devoid of any unnecessary noise. In reality it was devoid of quite a few things; the few neighbouring cottages had lost their human touch and been eroded by harsh winters. There were no boats on the lake, no children running about or swimming. And the lake itself was placid, a smooth varnish of sunlight reflected over the surface.

Peter stepped out of the car. He looked from the lake over to the cottage; the windows were all boarded up and chains clung to the shed door. Haze twirled in the air, coughing up fog in thick plumes. Sunlight crept through the mist, bleeding into it like the blood of fireflies.

He had a distinct notion about how everything could play out, and the knot in his stomach was an unwelcome burden.

There were only two cars there: the Bishop's station wagon, an ancient beast of browns, and a standard FBI SUV, sleek and black in comparison. Peter saw four people step out from these vehicles.

Broyles, Astrid, another agent and _her_.

He was grateful that she looked at least a tad deflated; if she had come bounding out that car he wouldn't have hesitated to set her straight.

She turned for an instant and saw Peter, and that devious serpent of a smile slithered over her face. For a second he thought that she tried to wave at him, but she realized quickly that that was impossible with handcuffs locked around her wrists.

Peter was trying not to explode; his teeth were locked in his jaw as he resisted curling his hands into hard fists.

She was _really_ going to regret it if she kept that up.

He felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned and saw Walter, his face complacent and calm; but his eyes said something else.

He strode forward, Walter at his side, and walked past Bolivia, her smiling face glaring at him like graffiti.

"Peter," she said with a smidgen of apprehension.

He ignored her, trudging on to talk with Broyles and Astrid, but as he continued walking he heard her call his name again.

_Don't even try Buttercup_, he thought. _Don't even try..._

* * *

><p>"You will enter New York City here," Broyles said as he motioned to a corner of the map, a low key area devoid of heavy patrol. "From there, you will proceed quickly through the city to the docks. Acquire whatever means of transportation necessary to get across to Liberty Island. Once inside, find Olivia and get out."<p>

"Sir," Astrid piped in, "what about when we're inside the complex on Liberty Island? Don't we have a specific plan for that?"

Broyles sighed heavily. "No," he said. "We have no intelligence records of the layout of the facility, and there are very few projections that we can make based on blueprints of the Statue of Liberty."

"So essentially we're going in and just supposed to... wing it?"

Broyles raised an eyebrow. "Wing it?"

Astrid shrugged. "For lack of a better term, yes."

Peter heard Walter chuckle behind him. "Ah! Astro's taking a page from my books, wondrous!"

Peter looked to Walter and quirked an eyebrow at him, Walter simply shrugged.

"She's learned a few things from me over the years," the old man said.

Peter sincerely hoped that his teachings included nothing more than a few humorous expressions.

Astrid continued her conversation with Broyles as a light wind ruffled her pale blue sweater. Peter looked to Bolivia, who for all her wits and charm was strangely stoic. Peter didn't mind that much; he was always more fond of sleeping snakes than live ones.

Bored with the lack of movement, Peter stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat and walked over the cottage, ignoring Walter's voice as he did. There was a stack of crates lined against the door, splintered at the edges and worn along the sides. Peter pushed them away, trying not to embed any slivers in his fingers. He reached slowly for the door handle and paused for a moment when his fingers finally curled around the handle. He was about to step through that door and walk twenty-five years into his past.

Now he was about to walk amongst the shadows and demons that he'd kicked out years ago.

He pulled the door open, and a loud creak snapped through the air as the musty interior of the cottage was revealed to him. He poked his head inside and saw nothing but shapes covered in sheets and layers of dust.

And with a breath, he dove into a life long lost in limbo.

He stepped past the threshold, gently placing his foot down on the floor as a puff of dust rose around it. There was a hollow thud beneath his foot as he shut the door behind him.

He walked forward slowly, the sleeves of his coat brushing against the occasional corner or edge. Sunlight leaked into the room between the slats of cheap blinds as Peter walked over to a familiar form. A sheet was draped over it, wrinkled at the edges like damp paint. The top was smooth, bathed in a sunlight that gave the sheet the colour of eggnog. Peter walked around to the back, where the sheet dipped slightly and pressed his fingers against it. He could feel the cool wood beneath his fingers, and he closed his eyes and heard the keys singing. He imagined his fingers dancing over the keys, the strips of ivory sinking beneath the press of his fingers. He remembered the pressure of the small wooden bench beneath him, his feet dangling in the air.

He was tempted to throw the sheet off and open the piano, but that was a canvas already painted on and he had to find his own to colour.

He stepped around the other side of the piano and his foot nudged something in the dusty shadows. He bent down and plucked it off the floor, but it wasn't until he brought it back into the hazy light that he could see what it was.

It was a picture frame, caked with dust and dirt but the faint shadows of faces still seeped through the dust. Peter leaned his elbows against the piano, and with his left thumb swept some of the dust off of the picture. The faces were all too easy to recognize.

It was a family portrait, an old one at that. Walter's hair was still a dark brown, and his face a little more full. Next to him was Elizabeth, eyes bright with a large grin; it was from a time when his mother was still happy. And between them was a little boy with a funny look on his face.

Peter couldn't be sure if it was taken before or after he was abducted; his memories of those days were faded, eroded to blurry images by the waves of time. He looked up from the picture to the rest of the house; amongst those walls were memories, moments of a life that he'd shared with another child and it was all blended into some crazy mural of lies and bedtime stories; though the house itself was severely lacking in any colour other than dying beiges and rotting browns.

Peter looked back to the photo. He couldn't remember that moment in time. Whether it was because it wasn't his or his memory had yet again failed him he didn't know. He tried to imagine the photos that he would have had with his parents on the other side; Walternate wrapped in some ornate suit and Elizabeth, quiet and demure, sitting with her arm around his shoulder.

For some reason, whenever he tried to imagine Walternate in those photos, all he saw was a blank space; a void flooded with air and lost words.

What he was trying to imagine was close to impossible.

Something inside him whispered like a little gremlin that Walternate wouldn't ever be in those photos. He would always be caught in some debacle at the Department of Defence and those incidents always took priority. He imagined the loneliness that must have swallowed Elizabeth over there when he was gone, full and consuming like a dark orchid.

Then he thought of Over Here, of this Elizabeth and the guilt that overtook her. The guilt that was so thick and pestilent that it eventually curled into a noose. He thought of Walter, weighted with the broken backs of two universes, much like a surgeon trying to perform an operation bordering on impossible.

Then there was Olivia.

He wondered for a moment what things would have been like for her without him, if he hadn't been taken from the other side. If she hadn't crossed over, wasn't experimented on by Walter, what would she make of the world then?

The thought crossed his mind that perhaps she'd be a little more jovial, a few less lines creased in her forehead. But the only thing that that reminded him of was her, and that's the last thing he wanted. She was the exact opposite of his Olivia, and that was why he was crossing over for her; she'd fought enough battles, it was time for someone to fight one for her.

He heard the door creak open behind him and turned, where Walter was strolling in. A brief look of nostalgia crossed his face as he walked towards Peter, eyes bright in the sea of shadows.

"Doing a little reminiscing?" He asked gleefully as he stepped up to the piano.

Peter shook his head. "Honestly, I'm not too sure."

Walter motioned to the frame in his hands. "What's that?"

Peter turned to the frame in his hands to show Walter, his eyes scrunching slightly as he examined the photo.

"Thing is, I'm not sure if this was taken before or after you crossed over," Peter added gently.

Walter looked up, a smile crossing his face. "Oh no this was after, not very long actually. We did this because we wanted things to get back to normal," his smile faded. "We wanted things to feel right for you, for it to be your home."

"It wasn't though, Walter," Peter said, continuing only after a thick pause. "But... it's where I've been for the past twenty-five years; where I've learned most of what I know. Where I've met people, where I've become the person that I am. And for those reasons, I suppose it really is a home for me isn't it?"

Walter's eyes were slightly glassy; a smile trembled at the corners of his mouth.

"That's good to hear, Peter," he said softly.

Peter smiled once more as the door opened again. It was Astrid.

"Hey guys," she said. "We're ready to go."

Walter practically bounded from the edge of the piano.

"Excellent!" he said. "I just love a good inter-dimensional adventure!"

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><p>"Come here, son," Walter said as he motioned towards the device. "You can't be too far away from it or you'll be split in half like a coconut when we cross over."<p>

_Lovely_, Peter thought with a roll of the eyes.

"Walter," Astrid said. "Please tell me you're joking."

He shook his head. "Oh, not at all, my dear. You see, your body can only withstand a certain amount of physical stress and when that limit is exceeded..."

She held up her hand. "Never mind Walter," she said. "I don't think I want to know the rest."

Peter gave her a gentle nudge in the shoulder and she looked at him, a slight fear bubbling in her eyes.

"Hey, relax," he began. "Massive Dynamic designed this device and provided the power supply. I'm sure that they've taken about every safety precaution known to man and then some."

She chuckled and smiled lightly. "Thanks, Peter."

He smiled back. "No problem."

Broyles approached a moment later with the agent who Peter had seen step out of the SUV with them earlier. He was older, his face a seasoned mosaic of wrinkles and creases. Peter could tell that he was standing rigidly straight in Broyles' presence.

Either the guy had a stiff back or was really trying to make a good impression. Peter wouldn't have been surprised if it was a little of both.

"Peter, Agent Farnsworth," Broyles said. "This is Agent Simons. He's been with the FBI for close to two decades and has impeccable sharp-shooting skills. I'm assigning him to you since we are supposedly 'winging it' for large portion of this operation."

Astrid smirked briefly beside him; Walter's sayings were contagious.

Peter looked back to where Bolivia was standing, surrounded by three other agents armed (quite literally) to their teeth. Her eyes met his briefly and he struggled not to choke, vile words clogging up his airway as he glared back at her. She was the epitome of disdain, coiled up in a fresh batch of deception.

"What about her?" Peter asked with a jerk of his head.

Broyles turned his head slowly, his expression smooth and unwavering as he looked.

"She stays for now," he said. "When we get our Olivia back, then we return her."

"You're going to let her go?" Astrid asked, a mild wave of shock washing over her face.

"Only if our Olivia returns. If not, she stays."

"But why are you letting her go when she has information about our side that they can use?" Peter asked, his clenched hands stuffed into his pockets.

"Because I'm no more interested in an inter-dimensional war than the rest of us," Broyles snapped. "If we keep the other Olivia, that's incentive for the other side to directly attack us, and that is something that we are not prepared for."

"And what makes you think that they will take this specifically and use it to justify a war?"

Broyles' jaw was set, clamped tight like a wrench beneath his skin.

"Because," he said, "The more antagonistic we appear to them, the more reason that they have to fight us. I plan to send their Olivia back to alleviate some of that aggression."

"And what if the aggression doesn't subside?" Peter asked.

"We'll discuss that if and when it occurs. For the time being, the success of your mission is paramount. Find Olivia and get out."

"Yes, sir," Astrid said.

Broyles walked back to where Bolivia was standing, surrounded by her cavalry. In the meantime, Peter and Astrid walked over to the device. It was similar to the one they had used to cross over before, coils of metal looping around sides where blue panels lit up. The tubular device was plain silver, tinted with murky sunlight.

"Hey, Peter," Astrid said as she walked behind him.

"Yeah, Astrid?"

"Do you think that we'll run into our doubles on the Other Side?"

He stopped as she came to stand next to him, her curly hair casting dark shadows on her face. Though he had no double, he had come into the knowledge that Astrid's double was an Agent with Fringe Division Over There.

He shrugged. "I honestly don't know Astrid. But really, I hope not."

She quirked her head slightly. "Why?"

Peter sighed. "Because I've seen their reactions to events. I've seen how they work and I've seen the kinds of weapons they use, and frankly they aren't weapons that I want to be caught at the business end of."

She'd crossed her arms by the time he'd finished talking, and there was a slight droop in her expression. He reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle pat.

"Hey, don't worry about it. We'll probably be in and out before we see any of them," he said before motioning towards the device. "Come on."

They joined Walter and Agent Simons at he device's side. A gust of wind rushed through the air, dishevelling Astrid's hair and ruffling Peter's. There were dark clouds in the distance, encroaching on the burning sun.

"Dr. Bishop!" Boyles called. "Go now!"

"Right, right," Walter said to himself as he reached for the switch. "Here we go."

He flipped the switch.

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><p><strong>Please review! Leave a review and maybe I will send you a sneak peek of chapter 15 ;)<strong>


	15. Defector

A/N: Hello again my fellow readers :D Here's the next chapter, and it's a bit more of an interlude between battles (but never the less is important). So read on.

On a side note, I have to say that the season premiere on friday was awesome :D

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><p><span>Chapter Fifteen: Defector<span>

She didn't wait to take refuge beneath the shroud of trees on the island, even if their cover was marginal at best. Her safety was in jeopardy so long as she remained on Liberty Island, and that was a prospect she would rather not entertain. Were her wrists not bound she would have considered swimming across, but the handcuffs would impede her mobility and navigating the rough waters would have been nearly impossible.

So she was forced to consider more creative ideas, and those were not easy to engineer; every logical scenario that she constructed was then ruled out either due to safety issues or simple impossibility. The idea of possibly being recaptured played circus tricks with her mind, teetering on tightropes of panic.

She was keeping to the shadows as much as possible, not so much as a precaution but out of necessity. She knew that beyond the tree line was a territory ripe with security. She looked over her current attire; it was nothing short of displeasing. The gown was a sickly white, peppered with tiny polka dots, tainted with the disease of poor design. When she turned her wrists at a certain angle she could see a few dark splotches creeping to life beneath her skin; they were long and uneven, like slugs coloured of mocha.

She swallowed. The crook of her left arm itched, faint twinges of pain pricking her nerves.

The marks on her wrist were not the only ones she was going to have by the end of the day. She held no particular respect for battle wounds, but if these were the proof that would allow her to explain the ordeal she endured, then she'd gladly show them. In the matter of a madman and a vendetta, a little personal sacrifice was hardly something she would squabble over.

There was a brush of something against her arm and she instinctively reached for her hip, her fingers slipping through empty space.

The absence of a gun at her side was certainly more than disconcerting.

She turned sharply, hands rising in defence as she made eye contact with the aggressor. She knew the face, the short brown hair and eyes tiny like a dragonfly's. She never forgot a face.

"You," she hissed, her lips pressing together in a tight line.

"Indeed," said James Beatty. "It is me, Olivia Dunham."

"If you've come to take me back you're gonna have a hell of a time trying," she spat, hands curling into fists.

He raised his hands, palms open to her and said calmly. "Not in the slightest. I'm not quite audacious enough to try and bring in someone like you on my own."

"Then what do you want?"'

"_I_ simply wish to help you, Olivia," he answered.

She scoffed. "You expect me to believe that?" she said as she raised a closed fist. "I don't think so."

He raised his hands a little higher. "One puppet can have many strings," he said, his voice climbing in pitch.

She paused. "And what does that make you now? A double agent?" She pursed her lips slightly and shook her head. "No, you're not here to help me."

She continued through the trees.

It was only a few moments later that she heard the distinct swish of grass beside her and Beatty was walking next to her.

"Olivia, stop," he said.

She kept walking, only stopping when Beatty stepped in front of her, his beady green eyes bubbling.

"Listen Olivia, you clearly don't belong here. Whatever the Secretary wants with you, I doubt that it's good news."

His hand reached into a small pack sitting at his hip and she tensed. He raised a hand slowly, palm open again and returned the other hand with a bundle of clothing.

"These were in a storage locker," he said. "As I recall, they were yours when you were brought here."

"Not that I don't appreciate it," she said and raised her hands to show him the cuffs, "but being bound doesn't make your offer as appealing as it could be."

He reached into his pocket and his tongue stuck out for a moment in a comical gesture; had Olivia been in a better mood she may have elicited a greater reaction than raising an eyebrow.

After a moment Beatty smiled and tugged a silver key from his pocket.

"Alright," she said with a smile, "so you've got the key. I'm still not convinced that this isn't some sort of contingency devised by the Secretary."

"First of all, it's not," he said as he motioned for her wrist, which she held back from him. "Second of all, why of all people would he send me?"

"You have a generally calm demeanour. People trust that. Plus, you've interrogated me; you're a face I know."

"But if I'm a face you know from inside, then you wouldn't trust me anyways."

"No, and that's exactly why I don't trust you now," she said blankly.

"Look, all I want is to help," assured Beatty. "Just let me get those cuffs off you and we'll work our way forward from there."

She studied him for a moment; it was true that his attitude was charming and he seemed trustworthy. But she knew better than to rely on the weak evidence of aesthetics; a mirror was only worth the amount one could see in it. However, she had heard nothing else moving near them, not a single scuffle in the foliage, which meant that he had probably come alone. She sighed against her skepticism, pushing it away to a far corner of her mind as she held out her wrists for him.

He nodded softly and pressed the key into the lock on the cuffs, the metal grinding as he turned the key. With a soft _clink_ the handcuffs tumbled to the ground, captured among the blades of the emerald grass.

"Alright," he said, "what now?"

"Now you get me off this island."

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><p>She had decided about twenty minutes ago that this man had some sort of knowledge of espionage as he navigated her to a boat without the slightest hint of a security alarm. The silence was everywhere; consuming, penetrating and downright <em>eerie<em>.

It wasn't much of a leap for her to draw the lines between the dots of her logic, pigments of understanding in her mind. It was simply a small jump over a murky puddle of ambiguity. But there were still questions, burning away on the pyre of her good intentions.

"Why?" she asked softly beneath the alcove of the boat they were using, leather upholstery sliced with jagged lines. The edges reminded her of teeth, sharp and razor-like.

He looked at her briefly, his hands never leaving the controls. His face was turned out to the choppy water when he answered.

"Why what?"

She turned her head slightly; there were clouds floating over them, pillows of discontent.

"Why betray Walternate for someone who isn't even from the same world as you?"

He looked at her again, his eyes stern and dark. They were too big to remind her of a dragonfly now.

"I don't think of it as betrayal. I consider it an act of morality."

"So what do you do when an order goes against those morals?"

She watched as he swallowed, the thick lump of his Adam's apple bobbing beneath his flesh.

"What do you do when faced with two ends of a gun? Do you choose the handle... or the end of the barrel?"

A knot twisted in her stomach, pushing against the spring of her stability as she registered his words. Was it really so easy to bend the back of one's moral code?

"What do you gain from helping?" she asked with a snap in her voice, the syllables crunching peanuts of air.

"A little peace of mind, is all," explained Beatty. "The Secretary may be doing what he thinks is right but what happens a few months – hell, a year down the road – when both universes start to really break apart? Then what will we have? If this universe is going to become a desolate wasteland, I don't want to stick around until it does."

"So you joined the Department of Defence to try and stop the destruction, to make your voice heard," she said, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders as the wind nipped at her body.

He looked back at her, and this time there was a thick darkness in his eyes, something so sorrowful that it sprouted icy pins in her spine and sent chills racing through her being.

His expression hardened, filling with a thick cement of annoyance.

"Not just my own," he said and reached for his back pocket, her eyes trailing his hand. She half-expected a little silver revolver to pop into his hand, ready to snap at her like a wolf. Instead he pulled a black wallet from his pocket, and handed it to her. She looked at it carefully, worn along the spine and made of what she was sure was leather.

"Open it," he said.

She flipped the wallet open, and next to his Show-Me was a picture of a woman with a young child; a little girl with brown hair no more than six. She briefly thought of Ella.

"Are they –"

"– My wife and daughter," he said. "They died in a Class-2 Vortex two years ago, and I joined the DOD a month later. I joined for _them_, and for all the other voices that never had the chance to get a say."

She tried to think of something reassuring or sympathetic to say to the man, but all she could manage were two words that could never do justice to his tragedy.

"...I'm sorry."

He nodded and turned back to the helm, both hands now back on the controls. The remainder of the trip was silent, and when he dropped her off at the docks in Manhatan, he gave her some parting words as she hopped over onto land.

"Hey, Olivia."

"Yeah?"

"Watch your back, alright?"

She nodded. Her eyes swept over her shoulder as he turned the boat away and disappeared into the gray veil of fog in the distance.

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><p><strong>Please review :)<strong>


	16. Revival

A/N: Hello once again, here is chapter sixteen for your viewing pleasure. Thank you to everyone who has read/reviewed/favourited/alerted so far, please keep with this story!

Anyways, Enjoy :)

Thanks goes to my wonderful beta, Uroboros75.

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><p><span>Chapter Sixteen: Revival<span>

The first thing Peter noticed was a distinct weight pressing against his chest, thick and heavy; there was also the sensation of what he was sure to be a head cupped against his shoulder.

_Great, _he thought. _Walter landed right on top of me_.

He blinked his eyes a few times, taking in the whirl of the sky and trees above him.

"What is that snake doing here?"

He recognized the voice as Walter's, and the meaning of his words slowly dawned on him, creeping over him like slimy caterpillar. He looked to his shoulder and he felt his eyes grow wide.

Blonde hair came into view; with a slow turn of the head, her eyes then met his. For a moment, all he could do was stare, the shock paralyzing him and the disgust welling in a thick pool in his stomach.

"_You_," he hissed.

"Nice to see you too," she said, deadpan.

Peter shoved Bolivia off of him and rose quickly, moving to stand next to Walter and Astrid. Agent Simons had his weapon out, casually resting at his side like a baited dog; Astrid's hand was at her side, her dark fingers also curled over the edge of a revolver.

"How did you find us?" Astrid asked, a bitter edge meshing with her voice.

Bolivia smiled, her cockiness bubbling over the brim of her facade.

"You know, it's amazing," she said, "the things that happen when no one's watching."

She had somehow managed to overcome the guards and get past Broyles; she was deadly, a cougar in wolf's clothing. Now she stood before them all, wearing the mask of a tiger and the lithe demeanour of an antelope. Peter's eyes scanned for his gun, and he found it resting at Bolivia's feet.

He flicked his eyes back to her, and she made no move to pick it up. She stepped over it instead, not even casting her eyes at it. Simons raised his gun, a long and narrow weapon reminiscent of a black eel. Bolivia held up her hands, her eyebrows drooping slightly.

"Look," she said. "I don't want to cause any more trouble than necessary. I just want to go home."

"Yeah, to tell my father what you've learned about our side," Peter snapped.

"Hey, I'm not just some sort of messenger. I've wanted to get back home for a while; I was in unfamiliar territory out there."

"Then why haven't you left already?"

She nibbled at her lower lip for an instant, eyes drifting to some dark bush at the edge of the lake.

"Because I was given a mission, and I never back down from one until it's complete."

"You mean you never back down from a chance at a little self-glorification," Astrid added.

"Hey, I'm nobody special; I'm just like the rest of you. I do my job."

"Except our job doesn't involve posing as someone from another universe," Peter retorted.

She shook her head, and Peter saw a glint of something – possibly disappointment – glimmer in her eye. Peter eased himself a little, the tension in his shoulders unwinding like a compressed spring.

Then Simons raised his gun.

"What do you want me to do with her?" he asked. "Agent Farnsworth? Mister Bishop?"

"You should really take the time to consider your next move," Bolivia interrupted.

"Whatever happens to me could very well affect your Olivia. The universes need balance. Kill me and someone of the same form has to die from Over Here. Who do you think would be the most likely possibility?"

Peter didn't say the word; it stuck to his tongue, thick and sticky but with a sharp sourness to it. The tang was harsh like bile and made him nauseous.

Astrid's hand was still perched on her gun as she looked to Simons, then to Peter; her eyes were questioning, brown dark and flecked with gold. He nodded in response.

"Bind her wrists," Astrid said as she turned back to Bolivia. "Use wire ties."

Simons drew a few from his pocket (whatever reason he kept them there Peter couldn't be sure; if they had suddenly become mandatory he certainly missed the memo) as he walked towards Bolivia, his weapon still raised. There was a furious scowl on her face, the corners of her mouth curled into plump and pink vines of discontent.

Keeping an eye on her, Peter took the opportunity to retrieve his pistol and journeyed to the front of the cottage. His feet crunched on wrinkly leaves that lay beneath him as he did; the sound was sharp and quick, like a crack of lightning.

He rounded a thicket of trees and stopped. Before him was a massive black behemoth of a car, with a smooth, lustrous coat. As he walked around the car his eyes scanned the surface, watching his reflection ripple over the tinted windows.

On the windshield, tucked beneath the arch of an onyx wiper blade, was a singular piece of paper. The sheet was the colour of raw ivory, the edges rough and grainy against Peter's hands. He opened the note and quickly read the three lines that were scrawled on the paper in black, curly writing:

_Peter,_

_Use it well._

_N. Sharp_

Peter tried the door, and it swung open without a noise. He seated himself in the front seat and searched for the keys. The dash was empty, as was the passenger seat. He knew it would be pure stupidity to leave them out in the open in an unlocked car, and that was certainly not in Nina Sharp's bag of tricks. Still, it would be more than unreasonable to hide them in someplace that would take hours to figure out.

With a sigh, Peter flipped down the sun visor above the driver's seat and the keys fell into his lap with a slight jingle. He held them up with a small smirk of amusement and stepped out of the lone vehicle, where he found Astrid rounding the corner of the cottage.

He held them up in her view, dangling them next to his face.

"Looks like we're in business."

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><p>Everything was red.<p>

The world pulsed and throbbed with red, bleeding over the grey and black of the Manhatan skyscrapers. The beats came at regular intervals, a thick staccato thrumming through the city with the fervor a mighty heart. A few wailing horns sounded like a cavalry march, and she cringed away from the streets, the red washing over the taxis and casting them in an eerie veil.

She knew that the world shouldn't be red, and her eyes constantly searched for some spec of colour, a splash of white or a dash of blue, a momentary breather from that violent crimson barrage.

She knew that she stood out on that stage of crimson, and it wouldn't be long before the Fringe Division from that side came looking for her. She had the startling notion that she would add some crimson of her own to that canvas when they did.

Her eyes kept searching, her sweeps over the buildings becoming faster as desperation welled in her gut. Chance had already dealt its hand to her, and she had no intention of playing another round. In an instant of distraction, her shoulder bumped into another person and she mumbled a quick "sorry" before continuing down the sidewalk.

As she felt her distance grow between her and the other person – a man, as she recalled – she felt the collar of her jacket creep up beneath the curve of her cheekbones, covering the swell of her lips.

She continued her stroll, taking deep breaths to try and relax the tensed coils of her shoulders. She gagged when a ripe scent assaulted her nostrils, heavy and pungent with the acrid sting of smoke and laden with the bitter taste of fuel. She felt a spasm in her lungs, a sharp contraction as she pressed her face to her elbow and coughed sharply, but the sensation didn't stop after one cough. The fit continued; her lungs kept throbbing as a sharp pressure built in her chest. Her knees bent and she pressed her torso against her thighs, tumbling against the wall of the adjacent building. The grind of the bricks against her jacket was loud, harsh and sporadic like gunshots.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and though she knew that the voice was meant to be gentle it rang loud like twin cymbals in her ears.

"Excuse me Miss... are you _alright_?"

She looked up cautiously, the throbbing red replaced by a bright, glowing whiteness. She blinked against the harsh glow, her eyes squinting against the shining sky as a form stepped into view. For a moment all she could discern was shadow, blurred along the edges like charcoal.

"Oh!" the voice said, distinctly male in its slight baritone. "Agent Dunham! Forgive me, I didn't realize."

She shook her head. "No, it's alright."

She blinked a few times and could make out his face, small eyes and a round visage.

"Are you sure you're okay, Agent Dunham?"

She nodded, the coughing having ceased moments ago and the ache in her lungs now faded. But there was a rushing roar in her ears, suddenly punctured by a metallic ring in the air. Her head whipped around and her eyes found it, a sterling silver coin shining in the blazing sunlight. She reached out for it, picking it up and twirling it between her fingers. She tried to flip it over the backs of her fingers, a trick that she had seen done once or twice before but couldn't determine when she did. Olivia tried to remember, the curtain in her mind struggling to part, but it was fastened to the stage.

"Are you sure?" he repeated, and she turned her head sharply to face him. "You seem kind of pale."

Before she could respond, however, she noticed a sign blinking in the sunlight that was lined in candy white and coloured in a minty green. The white letters formed two words that she hadn't seen in what she supposed was months, but it could've been more.

It read _Central Park,_ with a blazing white arrow pointing in the direction opposite that of her previous path.

"Yes," she said to the man. "I'm sure."

And she then walked away, pocketing the coin.

She crossed the street quickly, hoping not to draw too much attention in a world that still seemed to be blasting its orchestral shouts and cries in her ears. Once she was past a few more of the buildings (the ones that were noticeably cleaner and constructed of materials only a certain amount of money could buy), she saw it, peeking just beyond the edge of a tall skyscraper; an explosion of green. It might not have been a solution, but at the very least she could buy herself some time to sort her thoughts. But the park was immense, and navigation could potentially catch her in a bind if she wasn't careful.

She walked through the entrance under a canopy of emerald, the colour nearly overwhelming her. She knew that she needed to find somewhere to use as a starting point, somewhere to serve as her marker to get out of the park. Upon selecting a random tree as a marker, she approached the first person who walked by, a man in casual slacks and a button up shirt walking his golden retriever.

"Excuse me," she said. "Could you point me in the direction of Strawberry Gardens?"

The man paused and quirked his head at her, his eyes shrinking quickly around his dark pupils.

"Come again?" he said with more than an ounce of suspicion.

Olivia looked to the cobblestone path, the contrast between her black shoes and the pattern of the stones had suddenly become incredibly fascinating.

"Never mind," she said before walking away into the shadows of the trees. She didn't look back at the man, imagining that he must have shrugged and kept shepherding his dog along.

She cursed herself for her stupidity and she had more than a vague notion why, a sickening _knowing_ that made a specific point on her arm burn. If she rolled up her sleeve she was sure that she would find the spots burning like bright orange eyes. She had no idea what had been in that powerful little drug cocktail they pumped into her, but apparently it was enough to manipulate her perceptive faculties and wrangle her common sense. She clenched her teeth together. By now there would be fugitive alerts out on her and agents scouring the city for her.

She knew that she had to hide, and suddenly the park seemed far more inadequate than she'd previously conceived. The tree lines were too thin and there was too much space for light to peer through.

Even so, she figured it would have to do; she couldn't risk revealing herself in the public. The man who had seen her would hear about any fugitive reports as soon as he was out of the park, and surely a woman asking directions to a place that didn't exist would qualify as suspicious behaviour. The man wasn't the only one; any other person on the street wouldn't hesitate to turn her over to the Secretary if they could, because they knew better than to question authority.

He must have expected her to make such a mistake.

He must also have anticipated that her alternate would make similar mistakes as well.

As she listened to the approaching sirens, screaming like hyenas in the streets, she curled herself beneath an old oak tree in the cover of several thick bushes, and hoped that her mistake wasn't severe enough to awaken the monstrous lion waiting for her in the middle of New York Harbor.

And as the minutes clicked away, the sirens only got louder.

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><p><strong>Please review :D<strong>


	17. Trepidation

A/N: Here is the next chapter, and this is a long one. We're getting closer and closer to the end of this tale, less than ten chapters remain.

Thanks to my fabulous beta, Uroboros75 and to my readers; your reviews never cease to make me smile :)

Enjoy everyone.

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><p><em>The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~ Honoré de Balzac<em>

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><p><span>Chapter Seventeen: Trepidation<span>

It was like a thousand eyes were boring into him at that very moment.

Peter had never thought it would be so difficult to return to the place he once tried to call home, to the place where nothing and everything belonged to him.

"Walter," he called as his father stood back at the car, a hint of intimidation in his posture.

"Are you are coming?"

Walter looked at the building; Peter could tell that his eyes were scanning over it. He could almost fell a sense of _foreboding_ in Walter's stance, the posture of a wary vulture.

"No, son," he said, his expression hardening. "I don't think so."

Peter turned to his father. "Walter, are you alright?"

Walter placed a hand on the rim of the door, his fingers flexing against the metal. "I don't have a good feeling about this place, Peter."

"Well, if it's any consolation, there isn't much about here that makes feel all warm and fuzzy inside either," he said.

Walter's silence was his only answer.

"Tell you what," Peter offered as he placed a gentle hand on Walter's shoulder. "You can wait here with Agent Simons while Astrid and I go up, alright?"

Walter nodded with a weak smile. After returning the gesture with a bit more enthusiasm, Peter turned back to the building.

The apartment gazed back at him, swallowing his reflection and that of Astrid as he stepped towards the doors. The monolith rose into the sky, encrusted with sunlight and silver. Peter blinked against the spear of light that pierced his eye before motioning for Astrid to follow him into the building. Agent Simons remained behind to watch Bolivia.

He was thankful for the lack of a lobby (something which he had previously thought was a mark against hospitality), but now he realised how very useful it would be. The locks were of little problem for him, the numbers tumbling through his veins like wine as he drummed his fingers over the keys. The numbers clicked in recognition, and with an obnoxious _beep_ the door opened.

They quickly made their way to the elevator, which took a few anxious minutes to arrive.

They both sighed heavily when the doors opened to yield no one else. Peter stepped in behind Astrid and pushed a button, the doors sliding shut in front of him.

It wasn't hard for him to remember the number of the floor; it was two before the thirteenth floor.

He only remembered it so well because there was _no_ thirteenth floor in the building.

He'd asked Wal– the Secretary – about it once, but he'd brushed it off as superstitious babble that he heard here and there when the building was first being constructed.

Architecture was no concern of his; so long as he had something over his head, he would be satisfied.

Peter could think of a few things he would like to hit him _over the head_ with at that moment, all of which were not readily available. His hand rested near his gun, perched in the holster at his hip; though the space between his fingers was still less than comforting.

When he first mentioned the apartment to Astrid, she looked at him as if his common sense had been left behind in the other universe.

"Isn't that exactly where Walternate will expect you to go?" she had said, voicing her concerns.

"No," he replied. "He expects me to come after Olivia; and knowing Walternate, he'll be keeping her in the safest place he knows."

"The complex on Liberty Island," she answered.

"Bingo," he said. "So we go in, get what we need, and get out."

"And what is it exactly that we need there?"

He hushed his voice then, quieting to a whisper so that Bolivia wouldn't hear.

"When Olivia came to take me back, I didn't have a chance to swipe the blueprints to the machine." He turned his head for an instant to check the road. "So, provided Walternate hasn't already taken them back to Liberty Island, we'll take them for our own uses."

"And if he has?"

"Then we proceed to Liberty Island and get Olivia the hell outta there."

The conversation ended on that note. He knew that there was no questioning Astrid's loyalty; she would stand by him to the end, even if, by some cataclysmic turn of events, Olivia was nowhere to be found. But he hoped – and even dared to pray – that no such thing would happen. He was growing weary of the grand game of chess Fate force him to play.

But in his experience, the one thing that he learned from chess was that it was very difficult to take out a well-played Bishop.

The elevator doors opened with a small _ping_ and Peter stepped out.

"Which number is it?" Astrid asked, her eyes scanning the various doors.

"Apartment 1110," he said, motioning down the hall. "It's just up here."

By the time they reached the door, Astrid had made an important realization.

"Peter," she said. "We don't have a key."

He smiled sheepishly. As he fished into his pocket, he thought how delightful it was to have certain tricks stored up his sleeve. His silent thanks went to Olivia for the inspiration as he reached to pick the lock. From the corner of his eyes he saw Astrid's eyebrows flinch along her brow.

He turned his head a little more. "Astrid," he said, catching her attention like a fish caught in midair. "You alright?"

She nodded, the bob of her head shaky in its indecisiveness. "Yeah. I'm just not... a _fan_ of breaking and entering."

He smirked. "Don't think of this as breaking and entering. Think of it more as... _improvising_."

She shook her head and sighed. "Peter Bishop, the very definition of _improvisation_." She quirked her lips slightly, her head tilting on a gentle angle. "Remind me to check a dictionary when we get back."

"What's wrong with the ones over here?" Peter asked as a wiry _click_ sounded inside the lock mechanism.

She looked at him as if he'd just walked into the lab in the absence of pants, halfway to mimicking Walter's Tuesday tradition. "Are you kidding me? With my luck there'd be a picture of you grinning like a Cheshire Cat."

He pushed the door open, a grin splitting his face like the skin of a soft peach. After Astrid had stepped inside he followed, closing the door quietly behind them. The apartment was as spacious as he recalled. The vista before him was a mirror reflecting his own memories; but the memory was a capture of light and geometry, with angles cutting into air. The apartment itself was a shoebox of old photos, emblems of things preferably forgotten.

Peter's eyes scanned the room. The room appeared untouched; he was tempted to run his fingers over the dark cherry table and see if his fingers came back tinted grey.

Astrid had moved to the kitchen, her steps wary against the linoleum. Peter noticed her one hand was never far from her revolver, reduced to a small glint of silver beneath her jacket. He could tell by the slight hitch in her shoulders that she felt uncomfortable.

He had a similar sense of trepidation as well, waiting for a certain pressure to appear along the tip of his spine. It would be accompanied by a soft voice, muted to his ears only.

He shook his head, as if to clear his face from an imaginary rain that had trickled onto his brow. When he'd settled again his eyes continued scanning, trained spotlights speckling the room in his gaze.

Then he saw them, nestled on the table like wrinkled flowers of a decaying bouquet. The blueprints were a deep cerulean, etched with ivory white thistles of printing and instructions. Peter approached and gingerly picked them up, hefting them under his right arm.

"Astrid," he called and she appeared in the kitchen doorway. He held them up with quirked eyebrow. "Not too hard to find."

"I'm surprised Walternate hasn't moved them by now."

"Yeah," Peter said, shuffling through them. "Let's not jinx it, though; all I need to ruin my day is the sight of a bazooka aimed at my face."

Then his hand stopped abruptly while flicking through the pages. The taut curves of his lips crumbled into a frown.

"Peter," Astrid asked as she stepped towards him. "What's wrong?"

"There's a page missing," he said, and he began searching, his eyes flitting about the room.

"Well, it has to be here," Astrid said. "Unless Walternate took it."

Peter sighed heavily. It was one of the more critical pages, and deciphering the inner workings of the machine in its absence would be a far lengthier affair.

"Damn it," he hissed. "If Walternate took it, then the only way to get it back is to barge right into his office on Liberty Island."

Astrid's eyes were wide, trying to conceive some sort of solution. "Let's check around here first. It could still be lying around somewhere in the apartment, so maybe we should jus–"

But her words were cut by the sharp sound of a foot against the hard wood lining the floors. They both turned to the sound and saw a form in the dark shadows of another doorway.

"I think that this," said Elizabeth Bishop as she stepped from the doorway, "is perhaps what you are looking for." She held a hand up gingerly, the once absent piece of paper clutched between her pale digits, which she held close to her chest.

"Agent Farnsworth," she began, eyeing her strangely. "You aren't dressed in your uniform..." She trailed off, then looked to her son in shocked realization. "You brought someone from the Other Side here with you? Peter, why?"

Peter reached out for her arm, gently resting his open palm on her. "Look, she's with me. She's the Astrid from the other side. There's no need to worry."

"But why, Peter?" she pleaded. "Why risk something that could damage our world even further? You saw what has happened over here. Was that not convincing enough?"

Peter said nothing, his brow flexing like a wrinkled cloth.

"Your father has been trying to prevent things from getting worse, Peter. Are you really going to take away the only hope we have?"

Astrid stepped in, her shoulders drawn back. "Mrs. Bishop, we aren't here to cause any damage. We're only here to recover something that belongs to us."

Her brow creased. "You mean these?" she said, crinkling the page between her fingers.

"No, Mrs. Bishop," Astrid said. "We're here because –"

"– Because our Olivia Dunham was taken," Peter snapped, his voice harsh like a whip. "And we're here to take her home."

She sighed heavily, tossing the crumpled page on the table. "And where do these... _designs _come in? I've tried to study them, to understand _why_ your father had you working on them, but I still don't understand them."

She crossed her arms, her mouth curling into an anxious frown. "I don't understand any of this, Peter. You return home after being missing for twenty-five years and leave barely a week later. You don't leave any sort of explanation for your absence, and Walter said that there was some sort of misunderstanding between you two, and that you'd be back soon. Is this what he meant Peter? Because how can I know?"

"You can't," Peter answered. "Waltern– _Walter_ isn't giving you all the information. But I can. If you want answers, I can give them all to you right now."

She nodded slowly, her lower lip curling over the upper one before she answered. "That name that you called your father earlier, the one you almost called him now. What is it?"

Peter sighed. "Walternate, the... Walter from the Other Side calls him that."

Elizabeth sat down, a few loose curls from her bun bounced like springy vines. Her eyes fell to her hands, wrinkled with something Peter suspected was more than aging. "It's strange," she said. "I've heard in passing your father mention a name. _Perses_. But I never thought anything of it until I –"

"Until you looked it up in Greek mythology," Peter interrupted, sitting down with the papers in his lap.

She nodded solemnly. "The Greek God of Destruction."

"Original," Peter said dryly.

"Not a very pleasant nickname either," Astrid added.

"Peter," Elizabeth said. "What is this machine? Why did Walter have _you_ work on it?"

Peter folded his hands together, blinking his eyes a few times. "It...I'm honestly not quite sure. What I do know is that the reason Walter had me working on it was because... _I_ am the power source."

Her hands came up to her face, curling over her lips. "_You_ are the source? But how? And for what?"

"We don't know," said Astrid, crossing her arms on her knees. "But we think that it may be able to destroy universes; in this case, ours."

She shook her head. "Peter... do you know what your father vowed to do when the searches for you stopped? He vowed to make this world safe for you. He believed so much in the prospect of you returning that he would do _anything_ to keep this world from falling apart."

"Apparently, his efforts have expanded to include sacrificing that which he originally set out to save," Peter chimed.

"No," Elizabeth snapped, standing a moment later. "Peter, I refuse to believe that your father would resort to means such as these. All he ever wanted was for you to come home. Will you really take that from us again?"

Peter had already stood next to her. "I'm sorry... Mother, please..."

He reached out to hug her, his arms curling around her petite form. He could feel the pronounced curve of her shoulder blades, more defined than he remembered. He ran a gentle hand over her back and listened to her soft whisper in his ear, a final plea.

"I'm sorry," he repeated when they at last parted. "But this isn't my home anymore."

She looked away for an instant, and Peter saw Astrid frowning deeply. When she turned back her eyes were crinkled with deep lines. "Take them," she said with a motion towards the pages. "If you don't belong here, then those pages don't either."

Peter looked to the pages in his hands before passing them to Astrid, who began walking towards the door.

Peter held out his arms in an expression of defeat and slight helplessness.

"Look, I –"

But Elizabeth Bishop cut him off with the flick of her pointer finger over his lips.

"Despite everything that has happened, Peter, and whichever side you now choose to call home, you are still my son. Remember that." Then she removed her finger, and a befuddled Peter backed away.

When he reached the door he looked back, and saw the silhouette of his mother draped in the ethereal sunlight that poured in the windows.

Peter raced out the front door of the building, rushing for the SUV. He stopped abruptly, however, when he saw the open door, cracked like a broken eggshell. Astrid ran to the open door, looking in.

"Peter!" she called, sticking her face out of the car, her brown eyes wide. "Bolivia's gone! Agent Simons is unconscious."

Then another thought occurred to him.

_Walter_.

He dashed for the front door, the schematics crushed beneath his arm, and pounded on the door. "Walter!" he said. "Walter, open the door!"

A puff of grey hair peeked over the edge of the window, followed by a pair of frightened eyes. After a brief moment of fright where Astrid reached into the front seat to console him, Walter flicked open the lock.

"Walter," Peter said, reaching a hand out for his shoulder. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Walter shook his head for a few moments before answering. "That deceptive, trickster of a woman knocked out Agent Simons and then proceeded to threaten me as she escaped."

He ran a hand through his hair. "She pointed a gun at me, Peter. I could see it; it was like looking in the dark eye of a shark. I knew that if I got too close to it I would fall into its abyss and become part of that darkness."

"Where is she now?" Astrid asked, tending to a groggy Agent Simons.

Walter shook his head, a slight grimace on his face. "I don't know."

Peter clapped a gentle hand on Walter's shoulder. "It's okay Walter. You're fine now." He reached for the blueprints under his arm. "And look on the bright side; we picked up a little present for you while we were gone."

"Ah, excellent!" Walter exclaimed. "Nothing like a bit of constructive conspiring to lighten the mood. Wouldn't you agree, Aspirin?"

Peter looked to Astrid, who simply rolled her eyes.

His smile soon faded when he heard the sirens, screaming like raging eagles in the distance. Then horror bloomed in his stomach when he saw the broadcast on a large screen standing only metres away from him.

It was Olivia Dunham, with the designation of Fugitive affixed to her name.

And when the images of Central Park cropped up, Peter jumped for the driver's side of the car. "We need to move, _now_!"

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><p><strong>Dun Dun Dun DUN...<strong>

**Please review :D**


	18. Trepidation II

A/N: Hello again my fellow readers! Here is the next installment of CW for you all :)

Thanks goes to my ever wonderful beta, Uroboros75.

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><p><span>Chapter Eighteen: Trepidation II<span>

She heard the door open with the shallow breath of hinges creaking in their places. From the corner of her eyes she saw the flick of light that passed over their tinted surfaces. She thought for an instant that perhaps Peter had returned, forgetting something in the torrent of words that had just ensued.

Then she saw Walter walk through the door, his hands stoic at the edges of his crisp jacket. She thought that perhaps he'd had a rather trying day at the office, though the wrinkles around his eyes only ever gave but the slightest indication of his mood. But the suspicious air of something menacing, the sensation of something dark and frightening following him into the room was what changed her mind.

It was an unusual scenario. They had both been in that same apartment, but on separate occasions. Now with the both of them in the same space it felt as if there was not enough air for the both of them, and the lack of oxygen only made Elizabeth more apprehensive.

"Walter," she said as she took a tentative step forward. "What are you doing here?"

His face was unwavering in its stern calmness, and his hands moved slowly behind his back. When he spoke, it was of authority, a voice he ordinarily kept for the office.

"I was concerned about your well-being, Elizabeth," he said. "Seeing as you didn't answer at the house, I had your phone checked and found you here."

She looked distantly to the corner where her bag sat; her earpiece was tangled amongst her other possessions. She thought for an instant that she heard a feral growl from that same corner, and imagined a clawed appendage reaching over the front of her bag.

"Why?" she asked innocently, only because she did not want to venture into the deeper waters where ominous leviathans of ferocity lurked. She had once seen Walter angry, but even that word barely managed to confine the pure rage she had seen flowing out of him. The word 'anger' had merely been a fence to surround his emotion, and she had prayed for hours that it would hold.

"I told you this morning that I had some errands to run and that I'd be back at the house later," she continued.

Now there was an ounce of genuine concern in his eyes, his lips in a smooth, still line on his face. "There has been... an _incident_ in the city," he said, his eyebrows rising slightly. "I simply wanted to ensure that you were safe."

Her thoughts immediately went to Peter and what he'd told her. Was her husband's ultimate goal to lure their son back within the realm of his control? Herd him into the pen of his jurisdiction and send him in line to the slaughterhouse? The thought made nausea coil in her stomach like vipers, webbing against her organs in a painful pattern.

She wondered for an instant if it could be true, possibility looming on the precipice of her perception. The largest and most scandalous truths were often some the hardest to accept... or some of the easiest. Whenever truth arose from its sarcophagus and revealed itself to the world at large, denial would always be close behind, a blind rejection of something that changes one's perspective. But she looked at Walter and the strange hitch of his eyebrows and wondered for an instant how she could deny it. He had spent so many hours away from her cooped up in that monolith of contorted copper that his face was now merely a mask, a facade that covered the man she had married. But the mask now conveyed uncertainty, which was a double-edged sword.

How could she grant the man she loved such disdain?

Walter's eyes fell from hers to the table, where the shadows of specific papers had masked the rings of condensation from her cups of tea.

"Where are the schematics?" Walter asked calmly, turning back to her. Elizabeth saw the dark tinge in his eyes and knew that he was anything but calm. "Elizabeth," he said, stepping towards her with an ominous tone. "Where _are_ the schematics for the device?"

She backed away slightly. Her right hand came up near Walter's shoulder, not quite touching but enough to convey the desire for space. There was something about his tone and how he was more concerned about the blueprints than _her_. She felt as if the space between them now was not enough, as if it rippled with the boiling steam of lava roiling beneath their feet. Knowing what she did about the device, coupled with Walter's power, was intimidating at best, and downright _terrifying_ at worst.

The notion that her husband – a man that she married for his soft smile and her fascination with his infinite intelligence – could become something menacing with the flick of a switch was overwhelming. The idea that a single action of such a minuscule proportion could overturn the lives of billions made a tremor race through her body.

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head.

"The schematics," he said more firmly with a hard motion towards the table. "The ones that were here. I saw them the last time I was here. Where are they?"

"Walter, please. Calm d–"

"Where are they, Elizabeth?"

His voice was rising in volume now, puckered with thorns of something beyond rage.

Walter stopped for a moment, a reflection of her eyes in his. She saw it, her eyes downcast and her lips curled into a tight frown.

She was _afraid _of him.

"Someone else has been here," he stated flatly, stepping away from Elizabeth. "Who was it Elizabeth?" She said nothing, only shook her head. "Elizabeth, please. I must know."

Her lips remained tight, sealed shut like the skin of a ripe coconut. The words he wanted sloshed about inside her; the magnitude of her doubt was simply too great to allow Walter to know. If what Peter had informed was indeed true, then revealing even a speck of it to Walter could throw the potential for his escape into the realm of impossibility.

"It was Peter wasn't it?"

Her eyes snapped up, meeting the slightly defused aura of Walter's. She saw the reflection of her shock at his lucky guess, the shock of what he knew was the answer. She swallowed away her hope, leaving the bitter taste of trepidation in her mouth.

Walter's lips had slipped into a slim line, covering any notion of anger that had once been present. The logic behind his reasoning was dawning on her, cresting over the bridge of her understanding like a crimson sun. There were only a few people who had access to this apartment, who knew of its significance. Peter was one of those few individuals.

Walter's face scrunched, like a piece of paper balled and contorted between someone's hands, as his eyes bloomed into rage.

"You would keep my son from me?"

His voice boomed not in volume, but in threat.

_His_ son?

The selfishness boiled against her ears. He was so bold as to declare Peter the child of but one man and leave her for the rotting pages of memory and time? She would not adhere to such a declaration, not by any means.

"_Your_ son? He is my son as much as he is yours!"

It was her voice that bellowed now, filling out the room with a volume comparable to that of church bells. "Who was the one who kept him company when he was sick? Who was the one who raised him?"

She could see small pang of guilt in Walter's face, the knowing shame of trespassing.

"Who was it who sat by his bedside while you puttered away in your lab?"

"Need I remind you that the time I spent in that lab was primarily on trying to find a cure for Peter, not 'puttering' about in some aimless, deluded experiments?"

His voice matched hers, stretching the thin membrane of their relationship. Trust had already been rescinded, and she was sure that sensibility was soon to follow.

"And you would call a scientist from the other side a maniac over someone who would put their own son in a machine used for destruction," she said. Then, with a shake of her head, she voiced the thought she had been nurturing for so long.

"What's happened to you, Walter?"

He reached forward and gripped her arm, his fingers curling against her flesh.

"Walter," she said desperately. "What are you doing?"

"You are coming with me," he commanded. "If Peter is here and you have been informed about the device, then you must come with me."

She twisted her arm in his grip, friction burning her skin against his palm. "And if I don't want to?" she snapped.

He turned, one palm reaching for her face before she moved away. He settled it on her shoulder. "Elizabeth, ever since Peter first disappeared, I have only tried to make the universe better. Now that he's back, I can make this all end."

"By using _our_ son to wedge a wall between the front lines so you can drop a bomb? Walter, this is _wrong_."

He shook his head. "No, Elizabeth. There is a fugitive loose in the city, and I believe that Peter may be in route to aid her. If you come with me, you could help me convince him that he needs to turn her over."

Elizabeth shook her head, the gravity of the situation threatening to pin her to the floor like a carpet. "Why?"

Walter's grip tightened on her shoulder. "Because I _need_ you."

And she followed him, his grip lighter on her arm out of the building. She chose to abide out of a desire simpler than aid. It was primal, and impossible to ignore. She chose to go with Walter so that she could ensure the safety of Peter, keep him out from the scope of Walter's intentions.

It was love that drove her feet onto the concrete path outside the building. Her footsteps carried over to Walter's waiting vehicle, where a few stray papers fluttered in a gust of wind. Her bag slung over her shoulder, she slid into the vehicle in front of Walter.

A gentle jump of the car drove it onward, powering it forward as a soft grind from the road lulled through the walls. Elizabeth eyed her bag and hoped that she would not see a spindly appendage, accented with sharp claws the colour of onyx, reaching for her from the depths of her bag.

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><p><strong>Reviews are better than coffee! :D<strong>


	19. My Acquaintance Fear

A/N: Sorry for the long wait everyone, RL has been a little busy as of late but here is the next chapter of CW. I will not lie; this chapter is intense and some of you may need tissues by the end.

Thanks to my fantastic beta, Uroboros75.

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><p><span>Chapter Nineteen: My Acquaintance Fear<span>

Charlie had more than an inkling of suspicion concerning their sudden orders to proceed to Central Park. As he jumped from the Fringe Division van he adjusted his jacket for the fifth time; the damn thing kept brushing up against his collar in the most irritating way possible.

Lincoln stepped out behind him. As the leader for the majority of Fringe Division's outings, he coordinated the show. However, Charlie noticed that it was more than the assignment his superior was dwelling on. After he'd given out some brisk orders – his voice echoing through the air with a metallic ripple – Charlie went over to him. Lincoln's brow was bunched up like an abused piece of paper; the poor kid was worried about Olivia. Charlie knew that it was weighing heavily on him.

Lincoln wasn't the only one; Agent Francis still wasn't buying the idea of an infectious parasite. Granted, their universe was virtually crawling with malignant infestations and bacteria, but someone like Liv didn't seem like the type to succumb to such things. He'd only been told the general facts; that Olivia was infected with a parasite that affected her judgement and perception. They'd been told to exercise caution, but Charlie felt like implementing something a little more rational. After all, it was Olivia they were dealing with.

"Hey, Linc," began Charlie. "You holdin' up alright?"

He gave a shallow nod and swallowed before answering. "Yes".

Charlie gave him a quick pat on the shoulder as a gesture of reassurance before walking ahead. It was eerie to him how events had unfolded, and it had all started with the return of Peter Bishop. He wasn't one to pin blame, but what the hell could possibly have inspired the other universe into this? He knew that it had been the other Walter Bishop who had stolen the Secretary's son, but his motives still eluded Charlie; why would a man break dozens of scientific principles for the sake of one life?

They fanned out into the park, spreading across the concrete rivers that spanned the area.

They had weapons at the ready, but the notion that they required them made Charlie's stomach churn. Lincoln looked no better; there was a slight tinge of green creeping over his face. He knew that it was far from easy to be searching for a colleague, but for Lincoln it was even more difficult. For him it was searching for a friend; a very _close_ friend. Their experience with parasitic infestations only conjured vivid images of what disease had chosen Olivia as its new breeding ground, and that made Charlie regret the Red Vines he chose to indulge in earlier.

The team searched for several minutes, seeing absolutely no sign of Olivia. Charlie wondered if she had moved on after realizing they were after her; but the sudden crunch of tires on pavement drew his attention elsewhere, and with a quiet composure he drew his gun as an unmarked car crept from beneath the trees. He, Lincoln and the two other Fringe agents behind them quickly darted into the surrounding trees as Charlie clicked his earpiece.

"This is Agent Francis," he said into the device. "We've got an unknown vehicle in Sector Gamma. Standby for further instructions."

After a few more moments of nothing but the sharp grind of the pavement beneath the tires, the car stopped. Charlie held his gun to his side behind the cover of the shrubbery. From where he stood, he was having a hard time making out the faces of the vehicle's driver and passengers, and a quick glance to Lincoln' position told him that his fellow Agent was having the same problem. A short _pop_ sounded before the driver's side door of the car swung open and someone stepped out. The realization of _who_ it was only made the moment more stressful for Charlie; it felt like being punched in the gut by someone who was high on fury and a little too much scotch.

From the shrouded interior of the vehicle stepped none other than the infamous Peter Bishop, who appeared no different than the last time Charlie had seen him. Although the details of that night were slightly foggy on the part of a glass vase crunching against his skull, the memory of _who_ smashed that particular vase into his head was quite vivid. It was only when he woke in the Fringe Division hospital two days later that he realized that that woman was _not_ the Olivia Dunham he knew.

After a moment another man stepped out of the vehicle behind Bishop, followed by the Secretary's alternate and what he was surprised to see as Agent Farnsworth's double. The contrast between the Farnsworth he knew and this new one was sharp, imprinting itself into his mind. He crouched closer to the edge of the bush, the wind growing louder in its wail through the trees as he did.

"What's your call, Linc?" Charlie asked with a brief tilt of the head. "Do we take them now or wait it out?"

Lincoln narrowed his eyes in the bright sunlight, and there was a rather long pause between Charlie's question and Lincoln's response. Charlie thought for a moment that Lincoln hadn't heard him.

"Just wait," he said slowly. "I want to see what they're up to."

Charlie turned his attention back to the party of intruders; they exchanged a few words and glances and then began retreating back to the vehicle. Charlie saw Lincoln rise to a crouch, his own weapon curled between the pale arches of his fingers; he then tightened the grip on his pistol as well, the metal's cool sensation nipping into the soft tissue of his hand.

Lincoln raised a hand; he was preparing to charge. His earpiece crackled with the sound of Lincoln's commands.

"All units converge on the vehicle in Sector Gamma."

It was then that the chaos really began.

He couldn't say exactly what happened in the seconds following Lincoln's orders, aside from the fact that five minutes later he had a scratch on his forehead and was seated behind a large oak tree. Bullets echoed occasionally off the front of the trunk, and Charlie was thankful that it was as large as it was. A thick _clunk_ announced another bullet gouging through the bark, this time close to Charlie's shoulder. He hunched them slightly in his discomfort; even a damn tree couldn't provide him enough cover.

When there was a moment of respite (from what he expected was a moment to reload weapons), he peeked around the edge of the tree and saw Bishop's vehicle. The side was puckered with bullet holes; Charlie was surprised that the engine wasn't smoking.

A few more rounds peppered the front of Charlie's contingent of agents, and Charlie knew that the doppelgangers were either running out of ammo or endurance; he sincerely hoped that it was a touch of both. The frequency of the rounds told him all he needed to know, as the time between each enemy shot grew and billowed into the air. Charlie felt the space in his throat tighten and expand, the walls of his trachea expanding and then deflating like a balloon. A few more shots went off, and then stopped.

Then there was silence; an eerie, consuming silence that filled the space around them. The sun disappeared behind a shroud of clouds as a gust of wind shrieked through the trees. Shadows cast their longs arms over the space between the two parties, and Charlie could taste the acrid tang of smoke in his mouth.

For a moment, a puff of sunlight blew onto the clearing and Charlie had to squint to be sure of what he saw there. The realization drained most of his words from him, save for two.

"Oh, _shit_."

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><p>Beneath an overhanging tangle of branches and a mound of thick shrubbery, Olivia watched as her friends fought the Fringe agents from this side. It was more than just the confrontation itself that worried her, but the very nature of it; her friends were outnumbered by a good margin and she knew of no way to increase the odds. Under normal circumstances, she would have cast apprehension to the curb and rushed headfirst into the fire, but these events were a far cry from ordinary.<p>

Hours ago, she had a gun aimed at her temple. In that moment, a reel of her life had spun out before her eyes, made of everything she had ever known and loved. She had come close to losing that in that instant, and now she knew it was foolish to risk losing it again when unarmed, especially in a conflict where guns were the primary method of destruction.

She knew that if she went out onto that clearing that she would be shot, and the likelihood was great that she would die because of that. That notion, terrifying in its magnitude, rooted her to her spot beneath the canopy of muddled jade.

She could see Peter taking refuge behind the door of the car he'd arrived in, already covered in a smattering of bullet holes. Her respect for him bloomed wide, as did her affection for him; his absence had left a great deal of longing building inside her, and the sight of him once again was a great relief.

She wanted to be out there fighting with him, but the risk far surpassed any good that she could do. She hoped that by all intents and purposes the fight wouldn't tip over the edge of chaos; it couldn't possibly get any worse.

But she didn't quite realize what a naive notion that was; things can _always_ get worse.

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><p>Peter squeezed off the last few rounds of his gun before ducking behind the door to reload. He cursed when he noticed that his supply of arsenal had dwindled to scarce amounts. He glanced to Astrid, but she was engrossed in a fight of her own, and Agent Simons was also absent from sight.<p>

He was going to have to aim his shots _very _carefully.

Through a small portion of shattered car window, Peter took a scope of his remaining opponents. A quick flash of a gun revealed one in a bush about ten metres to his left, while two more denoted positions straight ahead. Peter shuffled to the edge of the door and snaked his gun around the edge before firing a shot, but it smacked the front of a tree and set off a burst of cinders instead.

He gritted his teeth and fired again, this time a grunt meeting his ears after the second shot flew from the barrel. He swiftly turned his head and peeked around the crumpled edge of the car door. His mouth went dry at the sight before him.

In the centre of the clearing stood Olivia, with a bright red stain blooming open on her belly. She brushed one of her hands against it and looked at it; Peter saw shock stain her soft face.

_Oh fuck. No, no, no, no, no, no..._

A hole exploded into existence in his chest, absorbing his good intentions in its miasma of blackness. He curled his lips over and over again, dragging his teeth across the surface of the lower one as the gun fell from his hands. He couldn't tell if his hands were shaking, only that his eyes were fixed on that single point of space before him. He felt the urge to run fill his essence, but it was not an urge to flee; it was the desire to run to the woman he loved and do everything he could to keep the life in her.

He would come to realize later that his legs could carry him much faster than he would have ever thought possible.

When he reached her side, the first thing he did was to reassure her. "Olivia! You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be just fine." He cradled her head of blonde hair in his right hand as he pressed a hand to her stomach to try and stop the bleeding.

When it got to the point where blood was oozing over the skin of his hand he gently moved his other one in to increase the pressure. There was so much red... so much blood.

Quietly and without much bravado he heard Olivia give a broken whisper. "Not... me."

"No, sweetheart, it's not going to be you because you're going to live, you hear me?"

She shook her head, her eyes dimming against her paling skin. "I'm not her," she whispered.

Peter froze. Air rushed out of his lungs in a silent gasp as his hands stopped the application of pressure to her body. Blood was gushing from the wound once again as Peter moved away from her. He had made two fatal errors, and at that instant he couldn't decide which was worse. He'd failed to recognize Olivia's alternate, but he'd also shot Bolivia. He couldn't fathom how he could have possibly managed to make the same mistake again. She wasn't Olivia; how could he keep mistaking her like that?

He ran his bloodied hands through his hair as his knees hit the pavement. How could he have so thoughtlessly fired the bullet? He looked back to Bolivia, who was now looking away from him, and he hated himself, absolutely _hated_ himself for it. He'd threatened to kill her before, and now it appeared the he was going to succeed, but it made nothing better.

Death never made anything better.

From the other side of the clearing a sudden wave of people appeared, individuals in Fringe Division attire. Peter quickly backed off when he saw Charlie Francis, whose face was crunched with the strains of anger as he charged forward with a group of other agents. Peter reached for his gun, and then remembered he abandoned it back by the car. He fell back on his haunches and scrambled away from Bolivia, his hands scraping against the pavement.

Another agent who Peter didn't recognise made a beeline for Bolivia, quickly cradling her against his chest as she kept bleeding.

'Liv, it's okay," Peter heard him say. "I've got you."

A hand fell on his shoulder as Astrid appeared by his side with Agent Simons in tow. Her revolver was perched soundly in her hand, glistening with diamond sunlight. She looked to Peter and then to the Fringe Division agents, her eyes falling on Bolivia with pity.

Over the rush of voices and shouts, Peter heard Charlie yell for a medic two, maybe three times. By the time the man in white came rushing forward with an escort Bolivia's face had faded to shade of white comparable to snow. A part of him was relieved that for the moment, the fighting had stopped.

Another part of him hoped that she would live.

The medic tried to push the man aside, the one who'd been cradling Bolivia for the past few moments, but he adamantly refused. Blood pooled around her, slipping out of her like sand from an hourglass. Peter saw her lips move and thought for a moment he heard the name Lincoln before her eyes started to droop.

"No!" The man shouted as the medic pressed against the bullet wound. "Liv, no!" His face was flushed as tears fell from his eyes, trailing over his skin as he brought her face close to his. Peter was sure that he saw the other man's lips move slowly, outlining some final words that couldn't hear. Then with a final sight her eyes fell shut and she sank in the man's arms.

The medic pressed two fingers to her neck and waited for a moment. Then with solemn regret he shook his head. The man, Lincoln he supposed, began sobbing against her body.

Bolivia was dead.

Charlie looked to the body of Bolivia and Lincoln, and then to Peter. He shook his head. "You come from _this_ universe. You are the son of the _fucking_ Secretary of Defence and how do you show it? You come back and murder one of your own!"

"I was firing blind!" Peter shot back. "I couldn't know that she was going to waltz into the goddamn clearing right when your people were trying to blow us halfway to hell!"

"_My _people?" Charlie replied, his face dropping in disappointment. "Now you're going to play the blame game. How very _noble_ of you, asshole." He took more than a few steps forward as he was only inches from Peter's face. His eyes loomed like angry embers as his muscles tensed. Peter reflexively clenched his fists.

"Stop," a voice said. Peter looked past Charlie, who'd turned around.

"Linc?" Charlie asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.

Peter could see the man huddled over the body of Bolivia. His eyes were downcast and his face marked with the paths of fallen tears. He looked frightened and small; it made Peter think of a lost child.

Lincoln's eyes moved from Charlie to him, and the torrential emotion pouring through his gaze was overwhelming. Lincoln brushed a stray blonde hair from Bolivia's face as he said. "Is this what you wanted?" He gulped as a small tremble went through him. "You come over here and do _this_," he said with a sharp motion towards Bolivia's body. "Is this what it's come to, destroying the people we care about to weaken us?"

Peter felt infinitely small at that moment, the scale of the world disproportionate to his miniscule size. His heart hurt for the man; he still didn't know where his Olivia was, and for all intents and purposes she could be as dead as her alternate. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Walter, who had only just approached from the shelter of the car, added to the despondent air with an observation of his own.

"Of all the things I have ever wanted to accomplish through science," he said softly, "_this_ has never been one of them."

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><p><strong>This was not easy to write, let me make that clear; killing off any character at all is one of the most difficult things I've ever done in a story.<strong>

**Reviews are love.**


	20. Cause and Effect

A/N: Hello again everyone. First of all I'm sorry that it's taken so long to update this story, but RL has been a bit busy as of late, and I happened to get caught up in my latest project 'Resurgence'. But fear not, I WILL finish this story, one way or another.

This is for you Clmbls, because you have been waiting for an update and for this moment ;)

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta work.

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><p><span>Chapter Twenty: Cause and Effect<span>

The heavy silence had drawn out far too long for Peter's tastes, but he couldn't bring himself to disturb the sorrow of a man who had clearly just lost someone that meant a great deal to him. Peter's face drifted into a sad frown at the sight of Lincoln Lee, who remained kneeling at the body of Olivia's alternate self. He moved his hands away from her face, allowing her body to rest on the ground, though his right hand still clasped one of hers.

Of all the tragedies that Peter had had to witness, he'd never thought that the death of a presumed enemy would be one of the hardest to bear. She had come into his life and tried to encroach upon everything that he had ever built for himself, things that were years in the making. For so long, he had hated her for intruding upon their lives as if there were no consequences; to her, it was part of the job, but for him, it was everything.

Now she was dead at his feet and the guilt was flooding his body. He felt the weight of all his failures collapse onto the bridge of his shoulders in one mighty avalanche. He'd betrayed the one place that he was biologically tied to; he had brought chaos where he had only wanted peace.

How had it come to this?

Charlie shook his head again, his jaw clenching beneath the scarred canvas of his skin.

"This isn't over, Bishop," he said. "Even if you leave, the Secretary will find you."

The threat is anything but vacant, and it makes Peter nostalgic of his days as a nomad. With those memories came flashes of nights spent alone in the streets with nothing but meager change tucked away in his pocket. Then there were the nights where he was huddled in a corner with a gun pressed between his palms, the nights when he was sure that he was going to die.

He had the notion that those nights would be revisiting him again in the near future.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to face Astrid, who motioned over to a thick plot of bushes about twenty feet from their No Man's Land. The bushes rustled, and Peter could see the faint hints of a face peeking through the tangles of emerald and mahogany.

A delicate, pale hand pushed aside some of the shrubbery and a figure stepped out.

Peter felt his knees give out at the same time as his heart thumped to a vigorous beat. He felt a pair of hands slip beneath his shoulders and catch him before his body hit the ground again. He looked up, saw Walter, and was instantly grateful for the man's presence; one thing that he had with Walter that he didn't with the Secretary was loyalty.

Once he'd regained his balance, he stood and took a few steps forward as the figure tentatively strolled out into the waning sunlight. Her dull red hair caught along the edges of her scarred face as her pace quickened.

Peter sped up, breaking into a run; it didn't feel like his legs could move fast enough.

"Olivia?"

He saw the broken relief flood her face when she was not even a foot from him; he wanted to wrap his arms around her and never let her go. She nearly careened into him, her hands gripping the muscles of his back with a firmness that prickled the nerves beneath his skin. She was clinging to him with such strong desperation that if he tried to break her hold on him, he would surely fail; she was holding on to the last thing that she could count as real.

That last realization struck a bolt of terror straight through his core; he had no notion of what ordeals she had endured in the past months, and all the while he'd been off gallivanting with her sinister doppelganger. It made him feel like the worst kind of asshole.

In the presence of such monumental chaos, he did the only thing he could: he wrapped his arms around her body and let her tired face rest against his chin. He felt her relax slightly, her muscles uncoiling against the strength of his body as he ran a hand through her red hair. She curled a hand against the back of his neck and he softly kissed her forehead. He had to be strong for her now; her very foundation had been smashed to a fine dust and she had no way of rebuilding it at the moment.

"Peter," she whispered, her voice laced with the echoes of terror.

"It's okay 'Livia," he whispered. "You're gonna be fine."

"I was so scared," she answered; and for the first time Peter didn't hear her voice, but the high tone of a little child lost in a dark cavern with no one else.

"I know." It was all he could manage to say through the thick shroud of his own foggy guilt, which spread and clouded in his mind without any hesitation.

The sound of someone's voice drew them apart, and Peter saw Olivia's green eyes widen slightly when she saw their present company. Charlie stood with a melancholic stare that bordered on fury, while Lincoln still remained by the body of his Olivia. The expression plastered across the Agent Lee's face was one of failing composure, where decency and logic were cracking to reveal the chaotic emotion hidden beneath it.

"How is this fair?" he asked, voice soft and faint. He stood from his position beside Bolivia and walked around past Charlie, until he was only feet from Peter. Olivia- whose own trepidation had gotten the better of her- had quickly moved behind Peter.

When Lincoln stopped, Peter could see the heaving motion of his chest beneath his uniform and the sharp slant of his dark eyebrows. His eyes were brimming with rage, threatening to spill over onto the already bloody battle ground.

"How is this _fair_?" he yelled, his rage boiling over into the air. He motioned angrily at

Peter before turning back to Charlie, whose face had fallen to something Peter could only pinpoint as pity. "He comes here and kills someone from _this_ universe, and yet the woman he loves is still alive?" He looked back to Peter, the slight clench in his jaw a haunting sight. "You tell me how that is fair."

Peter swallowed thickly; of all the things that he had ever considered horrendous in his life, this topped the list. He'd found Olivia, but he'd robbed another man of a friend, and the potential of a taste of joy.

"Lincoln," Charlie called, but Lincoln ignored him.

"It's not," Peter replied solemnly.

Lincoln turned sharply, the muscles in face tight with the strain of rage.

"Exactly," he answered. "And you can be sure that there will be retribution for this, Bishop; even on the Other Side, you won't be able to hide forever."

"Hey! This isn't a fucking war, buddy," said Peter. "We're only trying to keep our universe from falling apart!"

"You may think that now, but every action has consequences," countered Lincoln, "and it's not fair that someone who was so loyal to such an honorable cause should die like this!"

From the shadows of the tree line, a deep voice answered before Peter could even sneak a word in. Peter recognized it in an instant, and by the way Olivia clenched his left hand, he knew that she did too.

The heavy thud of a politician's shoes echoed against the battered pavement as the Secretary walked forward, scattering a group of nonchalant doves in the process. His face was stoic enough to be bordering on stone, and his dark suit mirrored the epitome of an awaiting disaster.

"Nothing is ever fair in war, Agent Lee," he said as he stepped closer to the group.

Astrid and Agent Simons stood nearby, ready to cover Olivia at any moment. Walter, having seen their latest guest, had retreated behind Astrid by a significant distance.

Peter moved an arm in front of Olivia and gently pushed her behind him, enough so that half of her body was hidden behind his. He was going to protect her; he wasn't going to let her disappear again.

"Peter," he said flatly. "I see you've found the fugitive. I think it would be a wise decision for you to turn her over, _immediately_."

Peter stood frozen on their bloodied No Man's Land, the indecision of the moment casting the weight of mountains on his shoulders. Desperation clawed at him from within as he glanced over at Charlie and the remaining Fringe agents; the fight was anything but his, and even with Astrid and Agent Simons at his side, it would be next to pointless.

He shifted so that Olivia was covered by his body a little more and looked to his father, the man who'd built and then destroyed his pillar of respect that supported Peter with such speed that he'd never even had the chance to blink. Defiance called to him, and Peter had no other option free at his disposal.

With a final, definite breath, he answered his father.

"...No."

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><p><strong>Dun Dun Dun DUNN...<strong>

**Please review!**


	21. Mirror

A/N: Sorry for the long wait on this story everyone, RL has been a bit busy as of late.

Thanks to my beta, Uroboros75.

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><p><span>Chapter Twenty-One: Mirror<span>

"Peter," interjected another voice. "Don't do this."

Peter looked to the murky shadows behind Walternate to see his mother, timid and minute against the backdrop of the recent battle. She walked forward, past his father and stopped only feet from Peter. "Peter, listen to me," she said softly, her voice hushed by the rasp of the wind in the dark trees. "There are things here that are beyond our understanding, beyond our control." She reached out and gripped Peter's shoulders, and he let her because it had been so long since either of his mothers had reached for him that he welcomed the contact.

"But above all else," she continued, "_you must not let the Olive branch fall_."

Peter's eyes flicked to hers for a moment, and he knew the precise meaning of what she'd said; he knew that she had seen his and Olivia's reunion just moments ago. He wanted to run, but with the idle weapons of an army coiled like serpents at the edges of the arena, he had no choice but to remain.

"Go," she whispered. "Leave, _now_." She turned back to face Walternate, whose visage was stoic as ever. "Let them go, Walter," she said.

His face crunched into folds of rage, his lips quivering against the backlash of his own intentions as Peter watched his hands curl into hard fists at his side.

"You would let my son walk freely after what he has done here?" His voice was hard like a sharpened diamond, and Peter could feel it cutting roughly against the skin of his ear.

"_My_ son has abandoned his own universe not once, but now twice. Yet you choose to let him go freely. Tell me, Elizabeth; _why_ would you choose to allow such a thing?"

Her face fell from Peter's for an instant, and he feared that she had no such response that Walter was looking for. Then, with a heavy sigh she turned her shoulders to face him, her entire body following a moment later. "Because Peter deserves to live in the universe that he belongs to," she said.

"Ridiculous," the Secretary snapped. "He belongs _here_; that much is evident."

Elizabeth shook her head, the few curls of her dark hair caught up in the wind of her uncertainty. "No," she said. "He may have been born here, Walter; but he belongs Over There."

Walternate made no move to respond, his features grounded in furious concrete and his posture ripe with tension. Elizabeth strutted toward him and paused, leaving less than a foot between them. "Can't you see it, Walter? These people care about him; they've known him for more of their lives than we have. What could we possibly offer him here that would compensate for what he has there?"

Walternate's face twisted in wrath; Peter though for an instant that his features would crack from such contortions.

"What can we offer? What can _we_ offer?" Walternate hissed, his eyes darkening with every word. "What Peter has here is reality, not some pompous fairytale cooked up by some fool deluded enough to think that he can defy the laws of science and be granted clemency!"

Peter felt a sting at those words, and he thought of Walter, who surely heard the harsh comment of his double. He reached out for Olivia's hand, and breathed a little more easily when he felt her nimble fingers curl around his hand; he would not let her out of his sight. If this was to be their end, Peter would not leave Olivia to face it alone; she deserved much more than mortal closure in the face of vipers.

"You think that our world is a fairytale?" a voice interjected, and Peter turned to see Walter, whose face was filled with its own concoction of discontent. Astrid stood by his side, her arms hooked around Walter's right; Peter wasn't sure if she was trying to comfort him or restrain him. Walter took a few more steps forward, Astrid following in his wake.

"Our world has had its own share of tragedies; there have been wars, genocides, terrorism, things that no one should ever wish upon another." He paused, and Peter could tell that he was formulating more words, but that they would be anything but easy to say. "I, for one, would never wish upon anyone the tragedy of losing a son, then a beloved wife."

Peter saw Elizabeth's expression cave slightly at the mention of Walter's deceased wife; he'd told her that his mother Over There had committed suicide. Walternate, on the other hand, looked less than compassionate; Peter thought that a statue would be more convincing at that moment.

"You were not the only one who lost a son," Walternate countered. "I lost a son that night, and for years, I never found a trace of him."

Walter's response was devoid of emotion, as smooth as a flat line. "Your son is still alive; mine is not."

"That still doesn't excuse you from the tragedies that _you_ caused," he spat, his eyes focusing on Walter. "You _knowingly_ crossed over, all the while in complete knowledge of the damage that you would cause to our universe."

"Be that as it may, I also crossed over _knowing_ how to cure Peter. Those were the only preconceived motives I had that night!" Walter's protest didn't seem that convincing to Walternate, whose gaze remained a penetrating blend of sinister rage and melancholy.

Walter stood his ground next to Peter and Olivia, Astrid remaining by his side the entire time. "I only wanted him to live; my Peter was robbed of that."

"Do you think that I didn't want the same for my son?" Walternate snapped. "I wanted him to succeed, to have a life full of prosperity; but how can he have such a life when the universe is tearing itself apart?"

Olivia was the one who broke the heavy silence, her voice like feathers grazing over mercury. "He can," she whispered as she stepped from behind the shelter of Peter's form.

"Peter can have a life wherever he goes, because he's learned to adapt to the world as it changes around him." She looked back to Peter, their hands still entwined. "It doesn't matter which universe he's in because the fate of one world can't rest on the shoulders of _one man_; there has to be a way to save both worlds. But whatever it is, it isn't going to be like this."

A silence permeated the air when Olivia had finished speaking, and Peter couldn't be sure if it signaled a general agreement or was a portent of a coming storm.

Walternate's features fell into partial shadows then, and Peter felt a cold shiver beneath his skin as he watched a dark mirror of his father emerge from his features.

"How very _naively_ put, Olivia," he said, his words blunt like the strike of a baton against skin. "But for every action, there is a _reaction_, and through that, consequence; one single action by Peter could spell the fate of this universe, and I will not allow chance to decide that fate for me."

His eyes grew even darker then, shaded with the paints of destiny's malice. "And as for you, I'm afraid that chance has already abandoned your hopes of escape." With that, a flurry of sirens screamed into the bushes as four more Fringe Division vehicles pulled up along the tree line. Peter pulled Olivia back and pushed her away from the battle zone as Astrid reached for Walter, they too running for cover. They ran past the now ruined car that had brought them to Central Park and instead made for the thick brush. When Peter glanced momentarily over his shoulder he felt his heart clench in his chest.

There stood Walternate in the middle of the clearing, with a gun poised in their direction, and all the fury and anger in the world couldn't compete with the expression that Peter saw on Walternate's face. He quickly shoved Olivia out of the line of fire and glanced back, watching as Walternate went to fire...

… and as Elizabeth shoved his hand away from their direction.

A crack from above made Peter duck as a rainfall of cinders danced over his head. After a moment of frightening silence he looked back to see Walternate and Elizabeth exchanging glances of mirroring anger. The field before him seemed to stretch out and confine them in their own defiant universe, where loyalty was optional and spontaneity a necessity. Peter took one last look at his mother and hoped with all the will that he could that nothing unfortunate would happen to her before dashing off into his own world of uncertainty.

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><p><strong>Please review; there are only a few more chapters to go!<strong>


	22. Open Wounds

A/N: I'M BACK! :D I'm terribly sorry that I've kept you all waiting so long for an update, but RL got a hold of me for a little while and I didn't have time to write. This is probably one of the longest (if not the longest) chapter of this story to date, so enjoy :)

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta work.

Music: The Truth Unravels - Two Steps From Hell

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><p><span>Chapter Twenty-Two: Open Wounds <span>

Peter caught up to the others only moments later, and they ran until their breathing was collectively labored. He felt his lungs cramping inside his chest and the muscles in his body were protesting immensely, but he didn't want to imagine the kind of physical strain that was shooting through Olivia's body at that moment. He glanced in her direction, her red hair bobbing behind her as she ran; she gave no hint of any pain. Peter pushed himself a little farther, coming up next to Olivia; that told him enough to get them to stop.

He reached out for Olivia almost instantly, something inside him deeming it as a necessary reflex. She was already leaning into the shadow of a tree when he caught her, and that was when he truly saw the toll her time in this universe had inflicted.

Her eyes were shadowed with dark crescents of sleep-deprivation and exhaustion. Her skin had lost a hint of colour and he felt the tension coiling in her muscles as he held her. Her eyes were what terrified him the most; they made steel nails curl over his skin in an icy wave when he saw them. Her pupils were blown wide like dark full moons that threatened to eclipse her emerald irises entirely. He watched her for a moment, watched how her eyes danced from one corner of her vision to another; she was searching for something that he hoped she would never see again.

"Olivia," he whispered, and he was shocked to see how fast her eyes darted to him. "We need to keep going." He was almost scared by how fixed her eyes were on him, as if he were the only real thing that she could trust at that moment.

She blinked once, perhaps twice, before answering him. The time between his words and her response stretched out for an eternity as he ran his fingers over the muscles in her shoulder in a soothing motion; they were coiled tight like springs. She finally nodded and then whispered an '_okay'_ before moving away from the tree. Peter kept his right hand on the back of her shoulder as she moved; he was afraid that at any moment she would stumble and he would not be there to catch her.

"Peter," Astrid said, her revolver poised at her side. "We need to get out of Manhatan; Walternate's security won't be far behind."

Walter nodded in agreement. "Indeed they will be, Astro. We must return to Reiden Lake as soon as possible."

"Reiden Lake?" Olivia interjected. "Is that where you crossed over? Won't that just destabilize the universes further?" Her eyes darted to Peter again, and he could see the concern billowing into the contours of her face.

"For the moment it doesn't seem so," Walter replied. "Although considering what has transpired between the two universes I don't know how much of a difference any of it will make now."

Peter saw the concern slip into a dark fear, and his own trepidation was beginning to brew in his gut. If the universes were in a downward spiral towards destruction, then they were going to have to think of a new stratagem. He knew, however, that the notion would have to take second chair to their current priority:

Getting Olivia home.

"Let's focus on one thing at a time, Walter," Peter said, his hand still curled around Olivia's arm. "We need to get Olivia out of the city; it's too dangerous for her to stay any longer."

"It'd be easiest to get out if we had a vehicle," Agent Simons interjected, and then added dryly. "Doesn't help that ours was used for target practice."

Peter pulled Olivia to her feet with care and placed a hand on her shoulder. He looked first to her, and then to the others; he had found himself in similar scenarios when he was parading across the world as a nomad. Though there had been times when he was caught between the edge of a knife and the barrel of a gun, he'd made it out alive.

This was no different.

"I can get us a car," Peter said. "Granted, it won't be by any _conventional _means, but I'd say that those went out the window as soon as we crossed over."

"Indeed," Walter concurred. "The traditional methods for anything have become obsolete. It is rather like tinker toys to engineers; they can never meet the needs of their users because the users' needs have surpassed their potential," he finished with a decisive hand gesture into the air, his face tinged with confidence. His expression of renewed vigor was short-lived, as a moment later Peter saw his father's face stumble into a chasm of lines and worry. He saw doubt cross his face for an instant, and that was all it took for it to make a permanent residence there.

Walter's expression quivered with his next words as his hand fell to his side. "We can only hope that our needs do not surpass the means available to us."

Peter stepped towards Walter – his hand leaving Olivia's shoulder as he did – and clasped the man's arms in his hands. Walter looked to Peter, and he could see the fragility in his father's eyes; he could withstand so much, but the tiniest flick at the right angle could shatter him into a myriad of shards.

"It won't come to that, Walter," he said with a gentle shake of his hands against Walter's arms. "We are going to get back _home_."

Walter's eyes slipped back up to meet Peter's, and he could see a speck of hope still lingered there; it was all he needed.

"I'll be right back," he promised, and then headed for the edge of the shrubbery. He didn't make it out immediately, however; Olivia's hand caught him first.

"Peter," she said gently, her voice still ringing with a subtle fear. "Be careful."

He paused, and brought his other hand to meet the one Olivia had placed on his arm. Her nimble fingers were cool and trembled slightly beneath his own calloused palm, but she didn't withdraw. Her eyes were olive mirrors, reflecting the same apprehension he'd been feeling for the past few days.

With a final nod he said, "I will."

Then he ventured out of the cover of the shrubbery.

* * *

><p>Finding an actual car was trickier than Peter would have first thought, but after slinking along the borders of shrubbery for an unbearable amount of time, he came across a sleek, dark blue SUV parked against the opposite side of the path. He quickly dashed across the pavement, careful to keep his footsteps as silent as possible.<p>

He would have to hot-wire the SUV from the inside, and he hoped in this instance that this one didn't have handles that sounded off like air raid sirens when you placed so much as a finger on them.

He let out a heavy sigh when he curled his hand over the handle and heard nothing. He was about to pull his small lock-pick from his pocket when the _crunch_ of wheel on concrete rumbled in his ears. He quickly dashed around to the other side of the vehicle and sank into the bushes there.

The rumbling crescendoed into an intimidating roar as Peter watched an ominous black vehicle roll past him a little too quickly. He suspected that it was most likely another contingent of Fringe agents searching for Olivia, and soon to be him as well.

Even when the vehicle was gone and the rumbling had diminished to a slight murmur, Peter waited a few extra moments until silence was his only companion before emerging from the emerald canopy. He checked both sides of the road before dashing back to the car door, where he jimmied his lock-picker into the key-hole, and hoped that no alarm would sound. His heart drummed in his head, pulsating in a staccato that even he couldn't dispel. A single drop of sweat rolled down his face, drawing a lazy curve over his right cheekbone. He took a breath and turned the lock-pick.

He heard nothing.

He dared to fiddle with it even more as that single droplet of sweat plopped onto his neck and curled down over his clavicle. It had already disappeared under his shirt when Peter actually ran a hand over his face and neck. He turned the pick a little further, inching through the degrees with the utmost care.

A moment later, he heard a faint _click_.

Peter pulled on the door handle, and let out a loud sigh when it opened without difficulty. He then realized how very tight the muscles in his shoulders had become, and was sure that he'd have a few cramps to work out later.

Another potential problem arose to him as he leaned under the dash of the SUV; what if the wiring was different Over Here? He hadn't seen much of their electrical work during his last visit, and now was not the time to for reverse-engineering.

_As long as it doesn't look like something Romulan, I should be fine,_ Peter thought as he flipped open the compartment that housed the wiring.

_Ah, fuck_.

What he found beneath that plastic shell was a mess of alien circuitry with wires in colours that he had never seen before. He sighed.

_So much for the 'red wire' trick._

* * *

><p>They had been waiting for precisely twenty-three minutes when Olivia peeked at the road for the fifth time; she didn't like waiting on the precipice of potential capture. With every minute that ticked by her heart fluttered a little harder against her ribs; anxiety was no stranger to her, but this companion was not a welcome one.<p>

She brushed a stray ginger hair away from her eye with a quiet scoff; the first thing she was going to do when she got back was get rid of the colour, even if she had to bleach it out. It was a reminder of everything that she was not, and she has no intention of leaving a permanent question mark on her identity.

Astrid sat nearby with Walter while Agent Simons kept watch on the road; she didn't tell him that she's been watching as well. His face is calm, poised, and Olivia can't help wondering how much of that composure was simply for show. Her own composure was something of an enigma to her at the moment; she knew that she had to be strong for them to get home, but how she managed to keep herself glued together after being broken down was a mystery to her.

She adjusted the leather jacket again as it brushed against her neck, the material nipping at her skin; she didn't like it, and she doubted that she ever would. Emotion had long ago become a luxury for her, and she wouldn't allow herself the indulgence now. They had to get _home_.

A loud _crunch_ grumbled up the road, and Olivia shuffled herself farther into the bushes in case it was a Fringe Division vehicle. Simons drew his rifle a little closer; whether it was out of habit or apprehension she didn't ask. She saw the vehicle curve around the road a good hundred meters away, which was an SUV nonetheless. She thought it was a Fringe vehicle at first because of the dark color; yet squinting and took a closer look, she realized that it was proceeding far too _slowly_ for it to be associated with Fringe Division. If those vehicles were on the move, it was usually at the fastest speed possible.

The SUV, tinted a dark blue, paused not too far from where they're hiding and Olivia watched the driver's side door carefully. After a moment it opened to yield none other than Peter Bishop.

Olivia let out a brief sigh as Peter checked the road and then made a brief motion for them to come over. She stood (and upon Astrid's encouragement) ran over to Peter, who ushered her into the back of the SUV. When she gave him a quizzical look, he gave an explanation.

"Just trying to draw a little less attention to ourselves," he said. "Not that we probably won't draw some anyway," he added.

"Can we even get out of Manhatan?" Olivia asked as the others climbed in. "Every exit that I know of requires a show-me, which none of us has."

"Olivia, if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's to _always_ have an escape plan," Peter said with a quirk of an eyebrow. He raised a hand to her face, running a gentle finger over her cheek. "We'll get out of here, I promise."

Olivia nodded and climbed into the SUV.

They had only been on the road for a few moments when Olivia heard the sirens.

She watched Peter glance at one of the mirrors (and uttering a curse in what she was sure was Russian) before slamming on the gas. The SUV sped forward and Olivia was pinned against the back of the seat as Peter sharply turned a corner and fought desperately with the wheel to keep them from flipping.

"Peter," Astrid called from the back. "Are you sure about this?"

"About what?" Olivia asked, closed off from whatever line of information Astrid had mentioned.

"Remember my escape plan, Olivia?" Peter asked.

She nodded, hoping that he could see her action in the tiny mirror.

"Let's just hope that the route is still open," he said as they screeched around another corner.

Then – for no apparent reason – they stopped.

"Peter, what's going on, why are we –"

Ahead of them was a narrow alley punctuated with garbage bins and graffiti, and at the end was a decline with an open door, leading to what Olivia assumed was an underground passage or a lot of some description. She was surprised that something like that would be so exposed, but then she saw Lincoln Lee glaring at them with the fury of an enraged Poseidon and she understood why.

Off to the side, Fringe Division was cuffing two men in casual attire, people that Olivia assumed were working in the area. Peter must've weaseled his way into a deal with them, but it appeared that whatever it cost him was worthless now.

Olivia gripped the back of Peter's seat and watched his fingers curl against the steering wheel; his knuckles were turning an ugly shade of white.

"Peter," she said.

"Hang on, everyone," he said as he threw the vehicle into reverse. Olivia quickly settled herself back in the seat next to Walter and held on to whatever she could.

"Peter," Walter interjected. "What does this mean now? If our only route of escape is cut off, then –"

"I _know_, Walter," he snapped. He swallowed thickly; Olivia could see the muscles rippling down his neck. "I have tried to be reasonable in my time over here because I just wanted to get Olivia back. I don't want to fight these people, but this is where I draw the line." He gripped the steering wheel harder, his knuckles paling. "I have tried to do things their way, but _no more_."

Olivia was thrown back against the seat as the vehicle sped forward again, this time in another direction. Looking ahead, Olivia saw a booth sitting passively on the dividing line of the road.

A checkpoint.

"Simons," Peter said. "Can you take out whoever is manning the checkpoint?"

The agent nodded without any hesitation. "Yes, sir."

Olivia would have protested, but their options had been significantly reduced; she'd learned that if you can't find a hole, you sometimes have to punch one out for yourself.

Simons leaned out the window and balanced his rifle over the mirror, his eyes squinting into the cross-hairs with an intense precision that Olivia knew herself to possess in such instances. Peter edged the vehicle closer to the checkpoint, and Simons took the shot. Glass shattered and more sirens wailed, but they did not stop. The agent peered once again into the rifle's eyes and fired.

They were close enough that Olivia saw the second figure fall; it was anything but graceful. Whoever it was behind those windows was snapped back and thrown down by the force of the bullet, a rag doll in the hands of a wolf.

But Olivia could not do anything in this case; they were now fugitives in a world that was not their own. She looked back at the mangled booth as they passed through untouched.

She never even knew their names.

* * *

><p>They reached the cottage at sunset; they had abandoned the SUV an hour earlier to try and stave some attention off them. Peter asked her if she was up for the walk; of course she was, she said in reply. Secretly, she didn't want Peter to have to deal with any of her own baggage; from what she'd seen he had enough of his own to contend with.<p>

She was exhausted by the time they reached Reiden Lake, and Peter offered to make up a room for her so she could get some rest (or at least try). She accepted, because a closed room seemed more comforting than an open space where innumerable eyes could be watching her at any given moment.

Agent Simons stood out front on watch while Walter snored quietly on the couch. Astrid sat tensely on the chair near the piano, her silver revolver glinting in the candlelight. Olivia stood rather awkwardly against a door frame in the room, one arm crossed over her torso while the other hung limply at her side; she felt tense and restrained, like an elastic wound too tight.

"How are you feeling?" Astrid asked suddenly, and Olivia silently thanked her for cracking the heavy stillness in the room.

She shrugged a little, her shoulder pushing against the material of the jacket. "I don't know. I guess... more than anything I'm relieved that you all came to get me." She stroked the back of her neck, still sore from the mark of that damn tattoo. "But we're not clear yet, and that's what worries me the most."

Astrid shifted in her seat, crossing her legs and placing one hand on the arm of the chair, the other across her lap. "You're in good hands, Olivia; we are not going to let anything happen to you. We are going to get you home."

She smiled slightly; Astrid's determination was uncanny, and she was grateful for it. "Thank you," she answered.

She looked back down the hall and then to Astrid. With a motion of her hand she said, "I'd better go check on Peter."

"Olivia," Astrid said, and she turned from the hall to look back.

Astrid was standing now, and the deep sympathy in her eyes drew Olivia back for a moment.

"It's good to have you back," Astrid said.

Olivia nodded and ventured down the hall. There was a light on in the room second from the end, and just as she was about to turn into said room Peter stepped out.

"Sorry," he said as he stepped aside from their near collision.

"Peter," she whispered, gripping his arm. "Thank you, for coming back for me."

He reached up to her face and cupped her chin, bringing her face closer to his before she stopped him. He let her go, puzzlement riddling his face.

"Olivia, what is it?"

She looked to the floor briefly, her eyes caught in the hypnotic swirls of dust at their feet before she met his gaze. His eyes were compassionate, the blue ripe with concern, but she couldn't take it, not until she knew for sure what had happened in her absence.

"While I was over here I didn't know anything about what happened on our side. I figured that... there must've been a reason for them to take me. I mean, why else would they lock me up in that facility..."

"Olivia," Peter said calmly before biting his lower lip with his teeth.

She _hated _it when he did that.

He took a breath and she knew that the news was going to be the farthest thing from good. She placed a hand on the nearby dresser to steady herself as anxiety welled in her body.

"They sent your alternate back with us... we had no idea," he said as he ran his hand through his hair. "She made us think it was you."

Olivia had heard the date on the radio in the SUV; she'd been locked up greater than two months. There was enough shock that her own identity had been used and manipulated like a puppet by none other than _herself_, but the crippling surprise was that it had taken them so long to realize that it wasn't her.

"Peter, I was over here for more than two months; none of you noticed anything?"

His face was in surrender, but whatever white flag he was trying to wave for her wasn't helping his cause. To her it was only surrender to admittance, like a child caught in a lie.

"She was different," Peter answered. "I saw how she acted, and I questioned it, but we had just come back from the Other Side and I thought... I thought it had changed you, Olivia."

Olivia shook her head, moving away from the dresser and instead towards the door. Her chest was a raging maelstrom, gnawing and pounding away even as she tried to quell it.

"Peter, she's not me and I am not her. I will _never_ be like her."

Then she shut the door, letting Peter's words be muffled into the wood that was no stranger to anything such as this.

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><p><strong>Please review; only three chapters left!<strong>


	23. Black Dove, Part I

A/N: Hello everyone, I'm terribly sorry to have kept you all waiting so long for an update but RL has been taking up a great deal of my time. But at long last here it is: the beginning of the end. I originally had this as one long chapter, but at the wise advice of my beta had it split into two. The second part will be posted by the end of this week.

Many thanks to my beta, Uroboros75.

Music: Benedictus and Merchant Prince – both by Thomas Bergersen

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><p><span>Chapter Twenty-Three: Black Dove, Part One<span>

Peter awoke hours before Olivia the next morning; he wasn't sure whether to consider it a relief or a concern. He thought that Olivia would be restless and up before the sun had even peeked over the horizon, but he realized that exhaustion cannot be evaded forever and that she may have finally capitulated to her body's needs.

He tried to search for something edible, but his search turned up nothing but dust bunnies and déjà vu. He was about to give up and take a shift at watch when a creak from the door down the hallway caught his attention; there was only one room that was occupied down that hallway.

Olivia stepped out into the kitchen slowly, still clearly bogged with the dregs of sleep. The windows allowed some sunlight in, enough to illuminate Olivia's face as she walked forward. She brought a hand up to shield her eyes when the sunlight met her face; she squinted briefly before casually moving her hand away, brushing away a misplaced strand of hair. She was still wearing her clothes from the past night, as she had nothing else with her; Peter was fairly certain that even if she did that she would have collapsed out of exhaustion before changing.

It took Olivia a few moments to realize that Peter was in the room with her, and when she did, Peter couldn't help the distinct notion of intrusion rippling up his spine; he knew that she was less than pleased with how things had gone with the other Olivia.

The feeling of intrusion came from the expression that materialized on Olivia's face when she saw Peter. Her jaw tensed, coiling beneath the canvas of her pale skin as the muscles in her neck tightened beneath the flesh. Her lips were a flat line, still as the surface of a pond. Her eyes were perhaps the most frightening thing to Peter: cold, steely, and furious in their olive intensity.

He knew that coming back would be anything but easy, and now that his life was tinted in shades of a red that he could not remove, it would be even harder. He can't pretend as if nothing happened because it would be a lie in the most blatant of senses, and he agreed long ago to leave habits of the sort in the dusty footsteps of his past.

But in a time such as this, would it be possible for him to redeem himself in Olivia's eyes? The look that possessed her at that moment gave him the distinct impression that it wouldn't be, and he can understand that. To Olivia, everything had to be insanely contorted, warped against reality's vision like melted glass; she couldn't distinguish what was hers and what was _hers_.

It was the sheer anger that he felt flowing off of her that startled him the most, because he'd never witnessed such raw fury from someone like Olivia before, and this had to be a rare occurrence. If anything, she was always the picture of calm, and anything beyond that was kept in the same realm as the rest of her personal demons.

When she finally spoke to him, her voice was reminiscent of ice water pouring over his skin: cold and unforgiving.

"Hello, Peter," she said.

"Hey," he answered, feigning confidence. In reality, he felt as if his stomach and heart had fallen through the floor, weighted by the guilt of what he had and had _not_ done. He had no idea how to go forward in this, having never made such a transgression, and the fact that it had taken him so long to figure out Olivia's double only made it worse.

"I tried looking for something to eat," he said, hoping to ease some of the tension through a change in topic. "I thought that there might be some canned goods or something, but it looks like this place hasn't been used in a good twenty years."

Olivia didn't immediately acknowledge him, walking over to one of the cupboards before opening it slowly, curling her hand over the brass knob. The door opened with a soft creak, casting a shadow into the wave of sunlight in the room as she opened it. Peter watched as she reached a hand into the dark space there and swept it over the shelf. When she brought it out it was covered in a layer of gray dust, which she quickly brushed off. She turned her face slowly, looking over her shoulder at Peter with accusation.

"Are you sure about that?"

He didn't have to ask to know that there was another layer beneath her words and that she was just peeling away the layers of the proverbial onion. She was being so incredibly scrutinous now because she hadn't been able to when it was really needed. She was making a big deal out of these details; it was her way of getting to the real core of the problem without touching it. She just swooped overhead like a hawk; she got close enough for a look but not to touch.

After a moment, he nodded. "Yeah, Olivia; I'm sure." Then he paused, uncertain if he really wanted to continue his train of thought. He decided that he couldn't let words wallow between them for an eternity.

"Look, I know that you're mad at me – and you have every right to be – but are you really going to start questioning every decision that I make?"

She turned away from the cupboard, a blank – if not slightly morose – expression skimming her face.

"Peter... if I can't even trust you to know me and who I am, then how can I trust you with anything else?"

Peter moved away from the table that he'd been sitting at and cautiously made his way over to Olivia. He did so slowly, not wanting to startle her, but he could already see the unease building in her tired face.

"Because those are times when I was in control of what I saw, not played like a pawn," Peter answered, keeping his steps steady. "She knew how to play the role, how to weasel herself into your life as if it were nothing. There were differences, but I thought that they were because of what happened here when you came after me."

"That still doesn't change the fact that you _didn't_ notice," she snapped, her olive eyes roiling.

Peter let out an exasperated sigh. He stood at a brick wall, because he knew that trying to argue his point further would only lead to a shouting match, and simply admitting his error would appear careless.

"Olivia," Peter said gently, reaching a hand out to her. "I would _never_ do something like this to you on purpose; that's not the person I am now. I didn't notice because she made it so that there was _nothing_ to notice."

Olivia scoffed, her anger starting to unfurl. "There is always _something_ to notice, Peter. She may have the same DNA as me but she is not the same person as me; she was raised in an entirely different environment than I was!"

Peter was left speechless. When he opened his mouth he found his tongue dry like parchment and hid mind devoid of words.

"How many of our moments did she take, Peter?" Olivia asked, and Peter felt his body tense at the inquiry; he had to tell Olivia about his relationship with her double.

"We did… see each other," Peter admitted with a great deal of trepidation. "A few dates together, but I _never_ slept with her. I give you my word on that, Olivia." It was true; there had been a few dates, but between their work in Fringe Division, they had somehow never gotten tangled up in one another's bed sheets. It was a small relief in this maelstrom of disasters.

"You still let her into your life," Olivia answered, her voice trembling. "You let her become a part of your life because you thought no different of it. She took my place so easily that you never even stopped to wonder? When I was over there, I thought about you because I knew that if anyone came after me, it would be _you_," she said, her words snapping the air like a whip. Her eyes were tinged a slight pink against her pale skin, her blonde hair ruffled over her shoulders.

Peter felt terrible.

"I put my trust in you because I felt like I could count on you," she added, brushing something away from the corner of her eye. "Now I'm not sure if I can trust anything." Her whole face tensed. Peter moved to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but Olivia flinched away. "Don't," she said, stepping aside. "This life… doesn't even feel like my own anymore. I've done everything possible, and still, everything is taken from me, no less by someone who thinks that they're me," she whispered between soft sobs.

After a moment, she turned back to Peter, her eyes redder than before. "You may have believed my alternate when she was on our side, Peter, but she will never, _ever_ be me," she snapped, before marching away towards her bedroom.

Peter was moving to follow her when the kitchen door opened, yielding a concerned Astrid. She immediately looked to him, her brown eyes blown wide.

"Astrid, what's going on?"

"Peter, where's Olivia?" Astrid asked, her eyes searching through the room.

Peter motioned to the hall that led to the rear bedrooms.

"She's in the back, why?"

"We need to leave, _now_," Astrid urged, pushing him towards the door.

"Whoa, Astrid! Slow down; what's with the sudden rush?" A knot of dread formed in his stomach.

She looked him right in the eye when she told him. "I was on watch. Out here, you could hear a pin drop. It's been silent for hours, and I knew exactly what it was when I heard it."

Peter quirked an eyebrow as the knot in stomach tightened. "Heard what?"

Astrid's response was even, smooth as a flat line. "Sirens," she said.

Peter's entire body clenched in dread, his heart beating against his ribs as the face of his vengeful father appeared in his mind.

They were coming.

* * *

><p>They found the device exactly where they had left it, tucked away in an old cellar away from the cottage that looked similar to a tomb. The space itself had been vacant aside from a few scattered cobwebs and the odd jar of suspicious preserves tucked away on a shelf, covered with a few layers of dust. It made Peter wonder how long it had been since they'd been to this cottage over here, as the house at Reiden Lake back home was in a similar state of abandonment. It was a tie between the two universes; the very focal point of all their troubles was a place left forgotten by the two men at the very heart of the problem.<p>

Walter wheeled the device out to the center of a small clearing behind the house – out of the sight of potential prying eyes – so that they could cross over. Peter watched Walter fiddle with a few switches, tinkering away with diligence. The slow creak of the house's door diverted his attention for a moment, and that's when he saw Olivia.

Astrid was walking her out of the house towards the clearing by a gentle hand on the back of her shoulder, and Peter silently thanked her for it. Olivia wore the ensemble that she'd snatched from Bolivia months ago, the leather and red a stark contrast to her pale skin. Her red hair was pulled back into ponytail, the fringes of her bangs pinned away from her eyes. Even with whatever rest she'd gotten, she still looked exhausted, her face marred with the trials and tribulations of a prisoner. She saw Peter when she was still meters away from him, and once Astrid had brought her close enough to the device, the air was rippling with the tension between the two of them, undulating ferociously like a snapped elastic band.

Walter was thankfully able to interrupt the tension in the only way he possibly could – scientific explanation.

"Now, Nina said that the power supply in this device would be enough for a journey here and the return trip. So, once I check over the circuitry we should be able to return home."

"Glad to hear it, Walter," Peter said. "I don't think you'd elicit many volunteers if we had to find a power source."

"Hmm," Walter mumbled, jimmying the panel over the power source open. When he finally had it open, the panel fell to the ground, accompanied by a grim '_oh no_' from Walter.

"Walter?" Peter asked, rushing forward, along with Astrid. "What is it?"

Walter motioned to the interior of the device, where a gaping hole sat in place of the glowing power source. "It's gone," he said. "The power source is gone."

Astrid stood next to Peter, her own expression bewildered and deeply concerned. "How can it be gone, Walter? No one else knew about it being here but us."

Olivia chimed in next, her voice softer than usual. "More importantly, how are we supposed to cross over and go home?"

Behind them, a voice answered her, reeking of malice and twisted intentions; it was a cold voice, tainted by the arctic winds of retribution. "You're not going anywhere," hissed Walternate from his stance on the edge of the clearing. Around them, enclosing them in the clearing were dozens of Fringe Agents, each one wearing the customary brand of their office.

It only took Peter to notice the more troubling problem. Clutched in Walternate's left hand was the power source, still glowing its ethereal blue hue.

"This is what you were using to travel between universes," he said, raising it to eye level for inspection. "Fascinating technology. It's unlike anything I've ever encountered in my experiences." He continued to turn the source in his hand while his eyes gazed at it with a dark curiosity that made Peter's skin crawl. "I'd be most interested in knowing how you acquired it," he added.

"Whatever you want from us, you won't get it from that power source," Peter answered. "The two universes are intertwined at a fundamental level; if you use that to cross over, you'll only tear them apart further!"

Walternate's gaze hardened as he lowered the source. He stepped forward towards Peter, leaving only a few paces between them when he stopped. "You would condemn my own travel, and yet you are perfectly willing to force your way back into this universe with none other than my own doppelganger!" Walternate's expression rippled with fury. "You are a selfish man, Peter. You do what you wish out of your own desires, not for the good of the many. You came back here to save someone who doesn't even belong to the same universe as you!"

Peter stepped forward then, unafraid to infringe upon his father's bubble of personal space. "This coming from the man who has launched his own personal vendetta against a universe for a single action? How can you say that when you've taken someone from the other universe, and kept them here against their will; what does that say about you?"

Walternate made no response.

"I came to get Olivia because she doesn't belong in this universe; she belongs in _her_ universe, and if you try and keep her here it will only tip the universal scales out of balance even more."

Walternate's expression did not waver, and his response was short. "You don't belong in that universe, Peter."

Peter shook his head in response. "No, I don't. I don't belong in either universe, but I choose to be in the one where the choices I make are my own, and not dictated by some warped destiny."

"I don't understand," Astrid interjected. "How did you find the device?"

Walternate chuckled. "Oh, my dear girl. You lack some of the wittiness of your double. _Any_ breach event of _any_ kind within the area raises an alarm, to which we swiftly respond. I knew too well who it had to be when the signal was shown to be emanating from Reiden Lake, the very focal point of this entire debacle."

"They tracked us, "Simons chimed in. "Used the breach as a homing signal and came here to take the power source."

Peter looked to his comrades and then back at his father, his expression revelling in its smugness. The idea of his father's true nature behind his actions was dawning on Peter, painting the canvas of his thoughts blood red in their wake.

"If that's true, then you've really just been corralling us," Peter said. "You've been driving us back here the entire time, because with the power source you knew that you would be able to capture us," Peter said with a bit more brashness. "But then, why did you chase us across the city and terrorize us? You pulled us into a firefight!" Peter raged, remembering the blood spilt on those grounds.

"In matters of war, Peter," Walternate said, "it is imperative that you never reveal any of your advantages until their proper time. I was not about to let you know that I had the power supply because then you'd go off the map, taking the fugitive with you," he said, motioning towards Olivia. "I will not allow it."

"And yet you're willing to allow destruction and death simply to protect your universe," Peter snapped. "Your side is not the only one walking a tightrope."

"And what would you have me do?" Walternate quipped. "Abandon my universe to aid yours on a fool's errand?"

Peter shook his head, the sheer stubbornness of this man appalling him. "No. If both universes worked together, we may be able to save both of them."

Walternate scoffed. "Out of the question. Their side incited the destruction over here and made no move to aid us in trying to cope with it; they have no idea of what has happened here because their side has been spared the tragedy of this universe. But soon enough, they will learn; reciprocity is one of the most beautiful things in nature. What is given must eventually be _returned_."

Peter swallowed; Walternate was set in his ways, and it appeared that there would be no way to sway him otherwise. He stepped away.

"You may be able to accept those conditions," said Peter, "but I won't. I'm not going to let this become a matter of revenge because that's not what this is about; it's about saving the lives of innocent people."

Walternate remained in his stance, his form emitting intimidation and anger; he was not one to be tried like this, Peter knew.

"Very well... You have made your choice, Peter," Walternate said before turning to the Agents at his side, one of which was Lincoln Lee.

"Kill them," he ordered.

Peter felt as if every part of his body had just been slapped by a sledgehammer. His own father had just ordered his execution; how could someone be wreathed in so much cruelty? Despite the tension between the two of them, Peter still reached for Olivia and curled a gentle hand over her shoulder.

This was how it was going to end, he thought.

Amongst the darkness of the surrounding trees, Peter heard dozens of safeties click off, pins unlocked and weapons loaded. Every moment was filled with a dark and unbearable heaviness, filling his throat with a tightness that made breathing difficult.

He was going to die.

It was something that he'd always known but never considered, because he'd never wanted to imagine an end to an existence that still had so much left in it. But every thread had an end, the point where the scissors of mortality have clipped it off, and Peter was sure that he had just found his.

He flinched when the first gunshot sounded, ripping through the air like a knife.

He felt nothing.

He opened his eyes as a second shot rang out, and then another. It took him a moment to realize that the shots were not being fired at them, but being exchanged between the two lines of Agents behind the tree line.

More shots rang out as a figure dashed out from the shadows and neared them, tattooed with the Fringe Division insignia. Peter pushed Olivia aside to protect her as the man neared them.

"Beatty?" Olivia asked when the man's face became clear; Peter had never seen him before.

"We meet again, Olivia," he said.

Peter was confused as he looked from the Fringe Agent to Olivia and knew that he was missing some of the details. "Olivia, do you know this guy?"

She nodded, her crimson ponytail bobbing behind her. "He helped me escape from Liberty Island." She looked to Beatty. "What are you doing here?"

Beatty shrugged as a shot whizzed past his head. "Let's just say that I don't entirely agree with the Secretary's plan of action. Are you alright?"

They both nodded. "Fine," Peter answered. "I'm just tired of walking around with a bull's-eye on my back."

"I can imagine," he quipped. "We need to get Olivia out of this clearing until the fighting dies down. Where are the others?"

Peter looked around quickly. Simons was backed behind a large oak, firing off shots across the clearing. He checked around the clearing, but saw no sign of Astrid or Walter.

That was until he looked towards the house, where Walter was pursuing Walternate with Astrid hot on his heels.

_Oh no._

"We need to get out of here," Peter said, torn between chasing Walter and guarding Olivia. This man Beatty may have helped her escape from the depths of Liberty Island, but Peter was not about to trust him with her life on a shooting range.

As they stood, a Fringe Agent stepped out to block their path, gun raised in the gloomy sunlight. It was Agent Lee.

"You're not going anywhere, Bishop," he said, and clicked the safety off.

* * *

><p><strong>Dun dun dun dun...<br>**

**What happens now? You'll have to wait and find out.  
><strong>

**Feel free to leave a review on your way out :)**


	24. Black Dove, Part II

A/N: Hello again, here is the contintuation of the last chapter as promised. Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed/favourited/alerted this story.

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta work.

Music: Merchant Prince - Thomas Bergersen

* * *

><p><span>Chapter Twenty-Four: Black Dove, Part Two<span>

Peter stopped in his tracks, his feet planted to the rough ground of the clearing. His right hand, still clasping Olivia's, tightened around hers as he raised his left hand. He motioned for the Agent to lower the gun.

"Take it easy," Peter said, noticing the fire raging in Lee's eyes. "We don't want to hurt anyone; we just want to go _home_."

Peter saw Lee's jaw harden beneath the tense muscles of his face, his expression drawn tight and taut like a whip. His eyes were unwavering in their ferocity, burning brightly against the white of his eyes. It was a frightening vision; it was not an expression that Peter wanted to be on the receiving end of.

"How can you call _Over There_ home, Peter?" Lincoln spat. "You were never a part of _their_ universe." He took a few steps closer. "But I suppose now that you've killed Olivia, you're not a part of this universe either." He raised the gun to Peter's temple, and Peter felt his Olivia's fingers tense against his hand.

"Please," she pleaded. "Don't do this. I never came here to start a fight or to hurt anyone; I just wanted to bring Peter back. He's done the same for me. How can you let every encounter with our universe result in violence?"

"Because every time one of your people interacts with our side we lose lives," Lincoln hissed in response. "This time was no different."

"Olivia, go," Peter said, loosening his grip on her hand. When she didn't move away he looked over to her, her face a contortion of shock and disbelief. Even though they had begun the day at odds, they still couldn't be kept apart; they had too much to share and too little time in which to do so to part now.

She shook her head. "Peter, I'm not leaving you."

"Sweetheart, _go_," Peter insisted, and after a moment noticed another hand appear on Olivia's shoulder: Beatty.

"I'll take care of her, Peter," the man said.

Peter's immediate reaction was to refuse; he'd found the majority of the people in this universe to meet the same character merits as his father did: cold, distant and vengeful. It was a dark mirror of the world that he'd come to know so well, versed in pages of books and formulas that he knew better than most.

Then he thought of Elizabeth, his mother, who'd helped him even with there had been evident distrust in her. She'd protected him and saved his life. She may be only one person, but Peter suspected that there were many more like her in this universe. Beatty had helped Olivia escape from the Liberty Island complex, and if that were a lie Olivia would not be standing next to him then. If Beatty were unreliable, Olivia would be in a cell instead of at his side.

But those notions didn't dispel all the doubts from his mind. He was aware of double agents and their duplicitous ways; he was not about to let such a plan infiltrate his life, but he had to protect Olivia.

"Olivia, go with Beatty," Peter said, before turning his eyes to Beatty. "If you let anything happen to her, it will be you with the target on your back," Peter hissed, to which Beatty gave a curt (if not slightly frightened) nod.

"Enough," Lincoln said. "If they want to leave, fine. My fight is with you, Bishop, and the life that you stole from me."

Olivia and Beatty moved off and Peter raised both hands, his beacons of peace to his adversary. A quarrel was not how he wanted to end this, blocked off from home and the world that he knew, but he was not about to let himself be trampled.

"I did _not_ murder her," Peter said. "I was firing blind in the park; I could have hit _anyone_."

Lincoln scoffed, anger dripping from his voice in a thick syrup. "You really expect me to believe that someone who comes over here to get back their version of Olivia Dunham wouldn't feel a little hostility towards ours?"

Peter shook his head, letting out a sigh of exasperation. "Listen; if I wanted to kill her I would have done it when I first crossed over months ago. I have no desire to fight with you, but you seem to have the need to start up a fight at the first chance you get."

"That's because I have something worth fighting for," Lincoln snapped. "I have a home, friends, and once... a woman that I _loved_," he said, his gun trembling between his fingers. "What do _you_ have, Peter?"

Peter lowered his hands. He felt horrible for Lee, but to what degree could he sympathize with him? They were two completely different people from different worlds, but they had fallen for the same version of the same woman at one point or another. That was what bonded them in this chaotic tangle of treachery and tragedy, that single bond to one woman. The only difference was that one loved her willingly, the other out of deception. Lincoln had his world to protect, but so did Peter.

"I have a _world_, Lee," Peter said. "A world full of people just like you and me that are trying to thrive. But there's also your world, one that's hanging on the edge of a precipice that I don't want to see you fall off of. I don't want to see either universe destroyed; I just want this conflict to end."

"It will," Lincoln answered. "But first people have to answer for the actions that they've committed," he said as he pressed the gun to Peter's temple, cold metal raising gooseflesh on his skin.

Peter whipped Lincoln's arm away before he could fire a shot; he was not about to die today. He grabbed Lincoln's shoulders and tried to force him away, pushing the gun away from his body, but Lincoln still got a shot in.

The bullet missed his leg, but grazed the skin of his calf before plunging into the ground. Peter gave out a slight yelp before grimacing, the pain distracting him enough for Lee to free himself. Lincoln moved to fire a point-blank shot at Peter, but Peter moved faster and landed a hard punch right into Lincoln's face. The agent was stunned for a moment, and Peter (regrettably) was forced to land another blow, a harder one right across his face. Lincoln slumped to the ground, his gun still clasped in his motionless hand.

Peter picked up Lee's discarded gun and ran after Walter and Astrid. His conflict with Lee would have to be settled later.

* * *

><p>Astrid was already chasing after Walter before she had decided if it was even a good idea. She was a woman of decisions, but now was not the time for stalling; she had to be decisive and swift. That was what led her to be on the heels of Walter and his counterpart.<p>

"Walter!" she called as both men tore around the corner of the cottage, casting a flurry of dust into the air behind them. She ran through it, turning the corner quickly and running straight into Walter. She backed up quickly and saw the cause of the sudden halt.

Walternate was pointing a gun at Walter.

Astrid whipped out her revolver and held it up for Walternate to see, holding it so that he was staring right down the barrel of her gun.

"Put it down, Walternate!" she hissed.

"And why should I do that, Ms. Farnsworth?" Walternate inquired, face stoic and undeterred. "Even if I lower my gun, there is no guarantee that you will lower yours. Nothing is certain; it's all a set of variables subject to constant change."

"If that were true, then you wouldn't be fighting our universe; if nothing is certain, how can you know that we will fight you? People change over time; just look at yourself!" She motioned towards him as spoke, lowering her gun slightly. "Somewhere beneath all that anger must be some of the kindness that I've come to know in my Walter."

"That man is _nothing_ like me," Walternate spat. "He stole a son that wasn't his and tore apart a world that wasn't his own."

"But you've done the same," Walter said gently. "You stole our Olivia when she was over here, and replaced her with yours. If you claim that I have no stock in your world, then why should you have any stock in mine?"

Walternate's face creased, his expression wrinkled into pits and canyons of fury that made Astrid cringe. She kept her gun raised and placed her other hand on Walter's shoulder, trying to calm him in whatever way she could.

"This doesn't have to end this way, Walternate," Astrid said. "None of us has to die here today. Just give us the power supply to our device and we'll leave."

"I'm afraid that I cannot allow that," Walternate said as he reached into his pocket and withdrew the glowing power cell. "I've already let you slip through my grasp before. If I let you go freely, what's to stop others from crossing over to this side? That, I will _not _stand for."

He clicked the safety on his gun, and Astrid imagined his finger curling over the trigger. She held her revolver steady, but was desperately hoping that she would not have to shoot this man.

_Please_, she pleaded to whatever forces were listening, _don't make me kill a man today_. The seconds ticked on, and she felt sweat beading on her forehead. She put a slight pressure on the trigger of her revolver.

_I don't want to do this_, she thought; she felt that if she killed Walternate, she'd be killing a part of Walter. She wouldn't harm the man that had given her so much and that she loved as her friend.

If she did this, she would never be able to look at Walter again.

In that moment, she realized how eerily silent Walter had been and turned quickly to him. His expression was a gloomy frown, his face painted with the lines of worry and regret. Compassion riddled his aged face, and Astrid was grateful at that moment to have it.

_Please don't make me do this_, she thought again.

From the house, a form burst forward and knocked Walternate over as a gunshot sounded. Astrid jumped as something violently whipped past her and burst into a plume of wooden cinders when it collided with the cottage. Astrid looked to the house, where the bullet had hit and then back to Walternate, who had been knocked to the ground by his son.

"Peter!" Astrid exclaimed as she lowered her revolver and tucked it back into its holster. "What are you doing here? Where's Olivia?"

"Olivia's fine!" Peter said as he tossed Walternate's gun away and stood, pointing his own weapon at Walternate. "Where is the power supply?"

Walternate made no move to reply, but his eyes trailed a path away from them and Peter's own eyes quickly followed, curiosity and dread welling against the curve of his ribs.

A few feet away, nestled amongst twigs and grass of assorted decay was the power source, broken and shattered beyond any hope of repair. The glass casing was shattered and the light, extinguished; the inner mechanisms were exposed, and a few wires protruded dangerously from the interior.

Their main hope of getting home now lay in shambles in a universe that wasn't their own.

* * *

><p>Olivia waited in the safety of some nearby shrubbery as bullets pinged off the device and Simons continued to fire off shots from his vantage point. Olivia, nestled beneath Beatty's watchful eye, surveyed the field and wished (for an instant) for a gun in her hand; she didn't like being out of action like this.<p>

"Beatty," Olivia said, drawing his attention for a moment. "Can't you do something?" she asked, noticing the strain in Simons' face. She had only known the man briefly during her time in the FBI, but from what little time she had spent with him she'd learned two things: he was patient, and one hell of a shot.

"Olivia, you're in no condition to be fighting the Secretary's agents," he said, gently settling a hand on her shoulder. "And if I shoot from here, I'd draw attention to us and put you at risk." She could see the gun resting at his hip, and she was beginning to question why he wasn't using it.

"I refuse to believe that all you or I can do is sit here," she hissed. "My friends are out there fighting for their lives because they came to rescue me, and you're telling me that the only thing I can do is lie here on the grass?" She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, shaking her head in refusal. "No, I won't accept that."

She moved for his gun but he caught her by her shoulders; she learned in that moment that James Beatty was much stronger than he appeared. "Olivia, if they capture you, there will be no escaping; they will keep you locked away for the rest of your life or until you've fulfilled their purposes. Either way, it means _death_."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" she asked in exasperation, all other options reduced to the status of the inadmissible. "I can't go out there and I refuse to sit here, so what do you want me to do?"

"Let me go instead," Beatty answered.

Olivia was about to protest, but Beatty cut her off before she could do so. "Peter told me to protect you, and if I go and help your friend, that will keep their attention on _us_ and away from _you_."

Olivia felt her brow tense. "How do I know that this isn't a ploy? You could be setting me up for capture."

Beatty's lowered his gaze, his expression sombre and sincere. "Olivia, if I wanted to capture you, I would never have helped you escape off of Liberty Island in the first place. If I _was_ some double agent, don't you think that it would be simpler for me to bring you in at the earliest convenience instead of going on some wild goose chase?"

Olivia weighed the options, the proverbial scale in her mind swaying in and out of balance as the scenarios plunked upon the plates. She couldn't just leave Simons there to fend for himself, but if she went out there she might as well paint a red target on her clothes. "Fine," she finally decided. "Go help Simons." She motioned to him at his post behind the large oak tree. "But if this is some sort of deception," she warned, "I will come for you. No matter what happens to me after this day, I will come for you and your horde."

For a moment, she thought that she saw a twinge of fear in Beatty's eyes, but he dashed off into the bushes before she could get a second look. They had gone a route that evaded enemy eyes, and Beatty naturally took a route that avoided attention once again. From her hiding place she watched his movements, inspecting them for any sign of deceit. Once he'd reached Simons' position there was a brief exchange between the two of them, and then he drew his gun and joined Simons in the fight.

Olivia breathed a sigh of relief and dared to think that maybe they would get out of this alive.

It was several minutes before Peter reappeared on the field, this time in the company of Astrid and Walter. Olivia allowed herself a brief smile when she saw that none of them was injured, but after a moment, she wondered.

What happened to Walternate?

"Olivia!" Peter called, and immediately a few bullets pecked at his feet like hungry ducks. He, Astrid and Walter dashed to the closest cover they could find while Simons and Beatty responded to the shots with some firepower of their own.

Olivia watched them from her position; they were not too far from her. She searched for Peter, her eyes scanning the shrubbery with precision. For a few long and drawn out moments, her eyes only met the deep and scraggly green of the bushes, until at last she found him. His clear blue eyes were unmistakable in the tree cover, shining brightly against the bleak surroundings. There was distance between them, and Olivia wasn't sure if Peter could see her through all the branches and darkness, but some notion in her gut made her sure that Peter saw her and was watching her, their eyes locked across the battlefield.

A cry to her left distracted Olivia, and she turned to see Beatty slumping to the ground, his back pressed against the tree. Olivia saw that he was clutching his shoulder fiercely, and her immediate thought was that he had been shot. Simons responded with a few quick shots across the field, and the number of enemy shots dwindled to very few.

Peter apparently saw an opportunity and bolted across the field towards Olivia. Despite any of their disagreements with each other Peter had come to take her home, and she was not about to refuse that. Peter reached her quickly, muffling her name briefly before helping her out of the bushes. Simons, still firing off gunshots, joined them in the clearing with Beatty draped over one shoulder. Astrid and Walter quickly made for the device, which Olivia was hoping would be powered up soon.

"Walter, isn't there some other way that you can power the device?" Astrid asked, her tone pleading. Olivia felt her hopes plunge.

"No, Astro," Walter said. "The device requires enormous amounts of energy, something that only the power supply was equipped to produce. Finding such a resource now is impossible."

"What about a person?" Peter asked. "William Bell sacrificed himself last time in order for us to cross back over."

Walter turned to Peter, a deep scowl on his face. "I don't exactly see any volunteers Peter, so I would suggest you think a little more creatively."

Olivia watched Peter move closer to the device, leaving her alone while Beatty paled next to Simons. She felt a well of dread open beneath her hope and good intentions; she had a bad feeling that she knew what Peter was about to suggest.

"Let _me_ be the power source," Peter said.

"Peter–" Olivia protested, but was cut off by the others.

"No, Peter," Astrid tried to interject, but was shut out by Walter.

"Absolutely not," the old man declared. "You have come too far to be subject to the guillotine of fate. I will not allow my son to sacrifice himself!"

"Walter, we have no other _choice_!" Peter protested. "If we don't leave now, Walternate will only send more forces, and we can't last another fight," he said as he threw his arms up, and Olivia felt some of his frustration and defeat echo in her bones.

After a moment Peter knelt down next to Walter and put a hand on his shoulder. Olivia moved a little closer to hear, but also because she felt too exposed in her previous position.

"I don't like the idea, Walter," Peter said. "But we have to get everyone home. We have to get _Olivia_ home."

"There is another option," a voice interjected.

Everyone turned in the direction of the voice, and Olivia was surprised to see an injured Beatty, his shoulder wound bleeding profusely and staining his jacket a dark and ugly crimson. He was attempting to stand on his own, but there was a clear slump in his posture. Olivia saw Simons standing close by, ready to assist if needed.

"You said that a person powered the device before; I can be that person this time," Beatty said.

"My colleague _sacrificed_ his life in order to power this device, Mister Beatty," Walter said. "And even then, his atoms were in a severely unstable state; you have not gone through such a transformation."

"Does it matter, Walter?" Peter asked. "You've said so yourself that the human body has a huge energy potential."

"Enough to explode with the force of five very large hydrogen bombs," Walter recalled grimly. "Peter is right in his analysis, but that still doesn't justify this man carelessly throwing away his life for us!"

"You didn't object to William Bell 'throwing away' his," Peter countered.

"That's because there wasn't enough time," Walter quipped.

"This is the exact same scenario, Walter!" Peter answered. "Either we make a decision or we all die here at Walternate's hand."

"Stop it," Olivia snapped, getting their attention instantly. "This isn't your decision to make. Look at him," she said, motioning to Beatty. "He's already suffering, we don't know if he's thinking rationally with all the blood loss or if this is what he really wants. Besides, who are we to put anyone's life but our own in our hands?"

"Olivia is right," Walter said after a moment. "It is not our decision to make and though we do not know how clearly he may be thinking, I say that we should still allow him to make his case."

Beatty stepped closer to the device, Simons only steps behind him. "I have betrayed my country and my home," Beatty said. "I saved Olivia from the complex on Liberty Island after she escaped because I don't believe that a war between our two universes is the way to end this. There has to be another way." He slumped slightly, but regained his posture a moment later. "I lost the only family I had Over Here, and now I'm dying. If I can only do one last thing in this world, let me at least do something that will benefit other people than just me."

Olivia walked over to Beatty and put a hand on his good shoulder, offering him what support she could. "Beatty, are you sure?" she asked. "Once you do this, you can't go back; your energy will be used to power the device."

He nodded slowly, a little groggily. "Yeah, I'm sure," he said.

Olivia smiled weakly as she gave him a gentle pat on the back. "Thank you," she said. "You saved my life." She moved to stand with Peter on the opposite side of the machine.

Simons extended a hand, which Beatty clasped and shook firmly. "It was an honour serving with you, brief though it might have been," Simons said. "You're a good man, Beatty."

Once they were all behind the device, Walter flicked the switch. The air around them fluctuated, undulating with into a web of intricate ribbons of matter. Olivia watched Beatty as he appeared to be studying the change. He paused for a moment and Olivia feared that at the last instant he had changed his mind, but he didn't. He stepped up to the bubble to space surrounding them and looked at them, his eyes placid mirrors of acceptance.

"During my time here," he said, raising his hands, "I have only ever seen conformity and conflict." His fingers neared the threshold of the field. "I've realized that among all of them, I am the only dove."

Fiery orange tendrils reached out for Beatty, lacing around the contours of his arms and shoulders; they gave a haunting glow to the deep wound in his shoulder. Against the bright light, Olivia saw that the wound extended into his chest, clearly much more severe than any of them had thought. Beatty shut his eyes as the membrane extended out to him and the light grew in ferocity. Olivia turned away when the light grew too intense, and a shearing sound tore through the air around her.

When she opened her eyes again, Beatty was gone.

And at long last, she was home.

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><p><strong>As always, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts in a review :) And don't go away; there are still two more chapters left!<strong>


	25. Fragility

A/N: Apologies for the wait on this chapter, but here it is at last :) Thanks to Uroboros75 for the speedy beta work.

Music: Any Other World - Mika

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><p><span>Chapter Twenty-Five: Fragility<span>

On the counter-top next to Walter's lab equipment, a tube of a strange pink substance fizzed on its stand. Before it perched Walter, humming to the classic grooves of Violet Sedan Chair's Hovercraft Mother.

"Walter," Astrid chided gently as she took the tube and placed it back amongst his lab equipment and away from the precarious edge of the table. "I told you to keep this stuff away from the edge."

Walter turned, his chain of thought broken by her interruption. "What's the harm in having this out?" he asked, picking it up and giving it a good swish. Astrid immediately reached for it, an urgent _please-don't-do-that_ expression plastered on her face. Walter chuckled slightly.

"Relax! It's only cream soda, Astro, not one of those concoctions I whipped up yesterday!" he said as he took an enthusiastic sip.

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Oh, Walter. I'm just trying to make sure that you don't create another mess; I just finished cleaning up the last of that fruit!"

Walter smiled to himself as he scrawled out a few more lines on the page before him. "Oh, you mean the remains of Mister _Pineapple_?" Walter said with his back to Astrid. "Well...he was slightly overripe."

He thought that he heard Asparagus mumble something – perhaps along the lines of 'no more fruit' – when the door to one of the back rooms yielded to Peter's entry.

"Ah, Peter!" Walter said, jumping up from his seat. "What excellent timing; you're just in time for some lovely Cream Soda." he held up one of the tubes for his son. Peter's expression became creased with something that Walter could only classify as perplexity.

"Walter, what is cream soda doing in a _test tube_?" asked Peter, his eyebrows heading towards the ceiling.

Walter harrumphed in response. "The narrow shape of the tube provides an excellent environment to increase the _fizz_ factor of the drink, thereby making it that much more wondrous," he said in delight before walking back over to the lab bench.

He thought that he heard Peter say something about fruit or hallucinogens (thereby reminding him to check on his last batch of Brown Betty), but he couldn't be sure.

"Hey, Walter," Peter said, catching Walter's attention as he turned from the lab bench. "Astrid's going to drive you home later, alright?"

Walter, with his buzzing scientific curiosity, would not accept such a vague statement. "And where are you going?" he asked, not because he was trying to pry, but because he was concerned that at any moment Peter could be snatched away by forces beyond the realm of his control.

Peter stopped, his path blocked by the quick snap of Walter's words. Walter knew that if Peter was exhibiting such trepidation that it had to be something concerning; he knew that there was something troubling his son.

"I'm going to see Olivia," Peter answered.

The silence that followed his words weighed heavier on the room than an anvil. It was no secret that the relationship between Peter and Olivia had been strained once they had been reunited on the Other Side, and Walter wondered just how deep the void was between them now. If the dark crescents beneath Olivia's eyes and the slight sag in Peter's shoulders were any indication, Walter could only suppose that things were far from alright between the two of them.

Walter took a few moments before responding, letting his words settle before releasing them. "You're doing the right thing, Peter. The _truth_ is what Olivia needs now, and it's probably best that she learns it from you, no matter how difficult it will be for her to hear."

Peter nodded, his face conflicted by emotions that Walter couldn't pinpoint. "I know," he answered. He then made for the door, his shoulders slumping beneath the form of his jacket.

Walter watched him go, his eyes observing even after Peter had vanished from sight and the creaking lab door was the only evidence of his presence. It was a disquieting notion, that Peter could be gone so quickly and so little could prove that he was ever there.

"It's going to be hard for them," Astrid said after a moment, causing Walter to turn and catch her typing away at a new code at her computer. "To go back to normal – whatever _that_ was for them." She shook her head, her hands falling away from the keyboard. "How Olivia must be feeling in all of this… I can't even imagine."

Walter stood and walked over to Astrid, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "It may never go back to how things were before, but I can only hope that what they become is something even better."

"If only everything could appear so optimistic," Astrid replied dryly.

"It's all we have to work with right now, I'm afraid," Walter said as he walked back to his lab bench, the soda bubbling joyously in its tube.

"Hey, Walter," Astrid said as Walter was about to take another sip of soda, "what do you think Beatty meant when he said that he was a _dove_?"

Walter set his concoction aside and folded his hands in his lap; he wasn't exactly enthused about his conclusions, but they were all he had at the moment.

"Beatty was a man tired of war," Walter began. "He wanted our universes to stop bickering, for there to be something better than what exists now, and I suppose that by getting us home, he felt that he was pushing the future onto such a path. Only time will reveal to us if his actions proved to be of any worth, but his motives… there, I still remain baffled. It's only after a great deal of thought that I think that I've found some sort of answer. You see, Astro," he said, "the dove, with its white wings spread wide in flight, is the angel of peace."

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><p>Olivia had never been uncomfortable with darkness before.<p>

She sipped at her whisky, letting the liquor flow through her system as she flicked on another light. Since being on leave was nothing sort of tedious, Olivia had taken interest in finding her preferred brightness for each room. She never left her apartment in darkness anymore; there were too many shadows and whispers there for her to shut her eyes. Even in complete light she still slept with her gun at her bedside.

She'd only been back for a few days but it felt as if she'd just moved into an environment that was entirely foreign to her. Her apartment was still the same, but Olivia saw it cast in shades of black and white. Every place she looked was tainted, muddled into the sickly gray of her alternate's infiltration.

It made her sick.

She could still remember her first night back; she was shaking as she opened the door because she knew what awaited her. The red hair was the first thing to go, bleached halfway to hell until she lost sight of any traces of red. After that, she'd ripped her place apart. Her bed became a catastrophe as she stripped the sheets off, tearing a part of her alternate's hold out of her life. Her closet had made her stomach drop; it was littered with red. There were her usual grays and blacks, but the red was unmistakable. Olivia ripped everything out and filled a crinkling black bag with her alternate's infestation. The clothes gone, she turned to every other surface: the counters, the floors and washed them down, erasing the hand and footprints she knew tarnished them. She'd cleaned away at them, and she was completely unaware of the passage of time until she saw a clock reading 2:30 AM.

It was then that she'd finally stopped, but her still-tainted home left a lot to be desired. She'd resigned to sleeping on the couch, gathering a blanket that looked untouched and curling herself into the mildly stiff cushions.

When she woke later it felt like waking up in another world, one that wasn't her own.

After three days, that notion still hasn't changed, the path that she walked on was forever tainted by powers that she had no control over, by people that she both knew and did not know. The world was an ocean, roiling and rumbling beneath her feet, and she struggled to stay afloat.

She hadn't spoken to Peter in three days; she wasn't sure when she would be able to again. The very notion of his affection shifting allegiances on the tide of causation was nothing short of disconcerting, and she wondered whether there was a point in reconciling if it was so easy to mistake someone else for her.

Was she truly so _plain_?

A knock at the door drew her away from her whiskey and melancholy, and she hesitated for a moment before answering. She propped her face against the door and peered through the peephole, her throat tightening when she saw who was on the other side.

Peter.

She backed away then, uncertainty flooding her senses against the backdrop of charred trust. Broken bonds littered her world now, and she wasn't sure if any of them were salvageable.

"Olivia," Peter said, his voice muffled by the door. "Look, I know you're here; I just want to talk to you."

His voice would have been a little more persuading if she didn't know about him and her double; she was fairly certain that if she found a single _trace_ of red on him she would crack open the universes just for the hell of it.

"Olivia," Peter repeated.

She reached for the door handle, carefully feeling the coolness of it beneath her fingers; brass, with a soft gleam to it, but nonetheless tarnished by her alternate's hand. She paused again before turning the handle. Olivia had always kept hundreds of closed doors between herself and Peter (and the rest of the world, for that matter), but she had opened one to Peter, allowing him to glimpse a sliver of her life. Now she feared that if she opened another, all the others would follow, and the shock of such exposure would pin her on reality's floor.

With a heavy sigh, she opened the door. Peter stood there, his hands tucked into his pockets and his shoulders tucked close to his face; she knew the signs of anxiety all too well. She felt a small amount of gratification at seeing Peter squirm in her presence; it made her feel like she had a bit of control, and after her ordeal on the Other Side she was grateful for any control that she could salvage in the chaos that was her life.

"Hey," Peter said, his mouth pressed into a flat line. There was stubble on his face – more than a few days' worth by Olivia's guess. His dark pea coat bunched around his shoulders, the collar flipped up against his neck. She didn't answer him.

"Look," he said, bringing a hand out of his coat and running it through his hair. "I know that these past few days haven't been easy for you, but I was wondering if you wanted to talk about this; about _us_."

It took her a few moments to process what he had said to her, and to decide whether it was endearing or far too bold. Her wounds were far too raw to be subjecting herself to such vulnerability, but if she didn't try to heal then she would never be able to move forward in her life, so she stepped aside and let Peter in.

"Thanks," he said as she shut the door.

She walked back around to her kitchen, taking another sip of whiskey before crossing her arms over her chest. "So you want to talk," she said, her voice stoic.

"Olivia," Peter began.

"No," she cut in. "Before you say anything, Peter, I need to make something clear. You thought that my double was me; you thought that another _person_ was me." She shook her head in utter disbelief. "How could you do that? How could _anyone_ do that?"

"I…" Peter tried to answer again, but Olivia held up a hand to stop him.

"I really don't think that there's any excuse you can give right now, Peter," she said. "She may have acted like me and tried to fit into the role that my life demands, but that doesn't make her _me_. Right now, I can't trust you to know those differences; you've already overlooked them once before."

She saw Peter's stature visually deflate and a bit of colour drain from his face. She knew that there had to be a part of Peter that stung, but she couldn't fathom that it hurt as much as the wounds carved out in deep arches in the heart of her being.

"What do you want me to say, Olivia?" Peter asked, his tone rife with defeat. "That I was wrong and that I should have seen them? I can't just look at someone and know if they're lying or not!"

There was a period of long, drawn out silence after his words, and Olivia wasn't sure if she should try to wring a little more honesty out of him or show him the door.

"That may be the case," she said, venturing back onto the thin ice. "But explain to me how it never once occurred to you that things were different and maybe, just maybe there was something more than just a 'change of character'?"

The ultimate look of resignation fell on Peter's face before he answered. "Because I wanted the best for you. For _us_. I had hoped that it was you taking down some of the walls that you'd built around yourself." He paused, his words falling like drops of mercury in her ears. "But clearly… I was wrong."

Olivia knew sincerity when she heard it, but there was too much stacked against him; too much uncertainty and betrayal lying on a path to walk upon. She had to rip away those supports and walkways before she could trust Peter again.

"You were," she answered. "And I can't trust us, or _this_," she said, motioning to the world around them, "until I can trust you again. I was replaced so easily... what does that make me?"

Her hands were starting to shake, her throat tightening. "What does that make me, Peter?" she asked, her voice quivering with anger and pain.

He gave her no answer, and that only served to infuriate her further. "Go," she hissed, reaching for her whiskey glass.

"Olivia, listen –"

"_Go_," she repeated, and Peter left, walking out the door and leaving her to her demons.

After a moment, she looked to her shaking hands, painted with the scars of her defeats and her anguish; she couldn't keep doing this. She downed the last of her whiskey, and with a frown she reached for more.

She had thought that she heard something else as Peter left, something whispered beneath the collar of his pea coat. It had sounded like the words _I'm sorry_.

She couldn't take apologies right then. Her wounds were still too raw to handle such a salt, and she wasn't sure when she would be able to. She downed another glass of whiskey, burning against her throat before setting her glass in the sink with the others.

She picked up her blanket from the arm of her couch, which was colored a serene beige, and curled up into the mildly uncomfortable cushions. The lights still on, she shut her eyes and drifted into a dreamless sleep.

And there, the darkness followed her.

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><p><strong>Feel free to leave a review on your way out. There's only one more chapter to go!<strong>


	26. Epilogue: Prelude to Destiny

Epilogue: Prelude to Destiny

A/N: So here we are at the end of it all. I'm glad that I've finally been able to finish this story after working on it for over a year and half.

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta work, and for all your help on this fic :)

Music: May the Best World Win – Chris Tilton (Fringe Season 3 Soundtrack)

Disclaimer: I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do not own Fringe or the characters; I'm just borrowing them for a little while.

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><p>Zeppelins prowled through the bleak grey skies as the Secretary of Defense observed the shifting hours from his office on Liberty Island. Waves ripe with fury smashed against the shoreline, sending an ivory spray skywards; the wind screamed through the trees, bowing them over in obedience.<p>

A moment passed, and Walter resigned himself to his desk, his perch of authority. He plucked his copy of ZFT – his manuscript of censorship – from where it lay and held it in his hands. What was it that made the universe so inextricably complex, so temperamental, that it would choose to have things unfold for the best, and in the very next instant, have them turn for the worst? What factor had been the catalyst inciting this reaction and turning his life into an entropy production line?

He skimmed his fingertips along the spine of the book, the embossed lettering grazing the skin. He was not a man to be discouraged, but in some instances he found it necessary to examine defeat in minute detail, so as to learn where things went wrong. Staring at the cover, he searched for a reason, trying to understand why those he had assumed were so close to him had chosen to ally themselves with those who were responsible for so much of the devastation that plagued this universe.

Peter was beyond his grasp now, as well as his protection, but from Walter's perspective he had barely ever been under that jurisdiction; Peter had long ago chosen his side. As for Elizabeth, his console, his friend, his _wife_; Walter had chosen to have her confined to the house, for her own safety as well as others. He was no stranger to the rumours that ran rampant through the streets like wild dogs, and word of Elizabeth's actions could reach unfriendly ears all too easily. It was also a necessity, now that Elizabeth knew of many of the events that had transpired; she would naturally want to interfere, but he could not allow that.

Nature must be allowed to take its course, and as long as this universe survived, Walter intended to see that through.

There was guilt associated with his work, guilt just as many professions demanded a person to bear, but upon further reflection he wondered if it was worth it.

The guilt in question was rooted in his resolve to sacrifice his very own son in order to save his world.

To some, it might have seemed like an obvious choice, as the scales were tipped wildly out of balance, but to Walter, it was not as simple. He thought first of this world, which he had sworn to protect against the malicious decay wreaking havoc on the lives of the innocent. But then he thought of Peter as a child, with the innocent gaze that he'd missed so much over those years, and the large blue eyes full of curiosity. If it weren't for Peter's sudden shift in allegiance, he would wonder how he could allow such innocence to be ripped from the world, but there are more innocent lives that never received the chance to open their curious eyes.

Control had slithered away from his hands for a time, but he had managed to grasp that sliest of serpents once more, and with the Machine still in his possession, he had regained some of his confidence. Though the primary schematics had been pilfered – by his prodigal son, no less – Walter had spare copies manufactured long ago. His primary concern now was to ensure that Peter and his companions could not make use of them.

He had many eyes and ears on the Other Side; it was time to make use of them.

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><p>A universe away, a timer rang as a pie finished baking in an oven.<p>

Music hummed in the background from a radio that had seen better days. Astrid Farnsworth set the fresh apple pie on the counter to cool. Walter dashed in a moment later with a look of great intent on his face.

"Walter," Astrid chided as she blocked his path to the pie. "_That_ has to cool first."

Discouraged, Walter turned back to the nearly bare table and sighed. Upon its surface lay the schematics for Walternate's device, of which his son was a central component. Covering a larger portion of the blueprints were notes, scribbles and scrawls of random thoughts that Walter had jotted from time to time. With a sense of defeat though, it occurred to him that he may not be able to form a complete hypothesis about his son's connection to this machine until he learnt more about the machine itself, and the schematics painted a picture that was sorely lacking in detail.

He would need Peter's skills and knowledge in order to unlock the mysteries of this disturbing piece of technology, and what its true purpose was.

"Walter," Astrid asked gently. "You alright?"

"Yes," Walter replied slowly, his eyes fixed on the schematics. "Yes, I'm fine, dear."

Astrid knew that his statement was farthest from the truth, but she could help but do what she always did; she tried to make whatever was troubling him disappear.

"Come, Walter," she said. "I think there's a cartoon or two we could watch while we wait for the pie to cool."

Walter smiled and turned away from the schematics. "Very well," he said with a nod. "Though I do wonder when that cunning rabbit will at last make the correct turn to Albuquerque."

Astrid answered with a laugh as they both left the kitchen, the schematics falling into scissions of shadow cast by the setting sun as it seeped through the window.

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><p>Walter and Astrid were not aware that others had been watching them.<p>

Three of them monitored the Bishop residence from across the street, each with their own impeccable fedoras and onyx suitcases. December, whose expression had been fixed in concern, spoke first.

"It would seem that events did not transpire as planned," he said.

March, his current right hand, answered. "Even with our intervention, Olivia Dunham has returned to this universe, along with the Boy."

July, who was entering a sequence of characters into his communicator, spoke next. "The disruption the Boy is causing cannot be allowed to progress unopposed. If our abilities are revealed, we will all face great risk. What course of action do you recommend?"

For moments, he observed the house, entrenched in thought.

"Summon September," he ordered.

And in the very next instant, they were gone.

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><p><em>Fin<em>

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><p><strong>Well that's all folks! Thank you to everyone for reading this story, and before anyone worries about the cliffhanger let me say: there will be a sequel. I do not know when, but one will be written.<strong>

**Oh, and some final thoughts from you all would be lovely :)**


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